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HISTORICAL SKETCHES; 



ILLUSTRATING 



SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS AND EPOCHS 



A.D. 1400 TO A.D. 1546. 



BY 



JOHN HAMPDEN GURNEY, M.A. 

RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S, MARY-LE-BONE. 



I 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 

1852. 



\ ■ • 






London :. 
Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 
New- Street-Square. 



THOMAS EDWABD DICEY, ESQ., 



CLAYBROOK HALL, LEICESTERSHIRE. 



My Dear Friend, 

To write History, in these times, seems 
rather a bold undertaking. I wish to explain 
how it is that I have been drawn into this path 
of authorship ; and a few words addressed to you, 
with the public for a hearer, will answer the 
double purpose of Dedication and Preface. 

Some years ago, you remember, when we were 
in the habit of meeting almost weekly, we helped 
to set up a Mechanics' Institution in the little 
town where I was labouring as Curate, in the 
hope of providing healthful instruction and ra- 
tional entertainment for some of those who lived 
near us. You, by universal consent, were our 

A 2 



IV DEDICATORY LETTER. 

first President; and some of the early lectures 
fell to my share. Gentlemen were soon found 
to communicate much that was interesting on 
popular subjects connected with Natural Philo- 
sophy; but the wide field of History was un- 
occupied; and it struck me that, without the 
expenditure of much time or trouble, I could 
put together what would impart information on 
great seras, and stirring events, and noble cha- 
racters, and, at the same time, help to direct 
my younger and less-instructed hearers in their 
choice of books. The experiment succeeded. 
Finding the sample to their taste, many were 
induced to pursue the subject for themselves; 
and the works to which I referred were in im- 
mediate demand at the Reading-room. Though 
nothing could be slighter than my first " Sketches," 
they answered their purpose. My parishioners 
took kindly what was meant for their good ; and 
I was glad to traverse scenes of the past with 
young, inquiring minds, supplying the Christian 
comment as we went along. 

Four years ago, having left my quiet country 
parish, I was called to take charge of a Metro- 




DEDICATORY LETTER. V 

politan one of overwhelming size; and no time 
was left, in my new position, for historical diver- 
sions or extraneous services. But when my first 
Autumn came, and London and its cares were 
left behind me for a few weeks, it struck me that 
some of my Lectures might be worked up into 
a volume which would supply a want in our 
juvenile Literature. I knew of no work on 
General History, at once lively and informing, — 
neither too much cumbered with details, nor too 
dry and meagre, — which might be read in the 
School-room, or by persons of limited leisure, 
between such books as Mrs. Markham's, and the 
larger Histories of Robertson, Russell and others. 
Single volumes on individual characters commonly 
tell more than is wanted for a first reading, or in- 
troduce topics which the youthful reader can well 
spare; while others, professedly written for the 
young, have often a childish air about them which 
repels an adult reader, and very much curtails 
their usefulness. I cannot tell to what extent 
I have succeeded; but my aim has been to avoid 
these defects, and to supply a book which may 
relieve the dulness of a Latin lesson, or be 

A3 



VI DEDICATORY LETTER. 

read by mothers to their daughters, or have a 
favoured place in the Mechanics' Library. To 
more than this I do not pretend ; and I shall be 
abundantly satisfied if to youths and maidens and 
intelligent working men I shall supply some 
pleasant and useful reading. 

Having this object in view, I have endeavoured 
to give some variety to my volume by selecting 
subjects from widely different scenes, and have 
chosen four distinguished names from the annals 
of France, England, Spain and Germany. My 
hope is, that what is told here will fix some great 
epochs in eager enquiring minds at the age when 
memory is most retentive, — that their earliest re- 
collections of the events described will be asso- 
ciated with just views upon the great questions 
of social morality, — and that from the starting- 
points which my simple narratives supply they 
will go forward in their studies with a healthful 
appetite for what they will find in the works of 
more learned writers. 

One thing I wish distinctly to state, that I 
may not be thought to have neglected my higher 
calling, while wandering where duty did not lead 



DEDICATORY LETTER. vil 

me. The original Lectures have been rewritten 
and much enlarged; but the work has been my 
holiday task, taken up and pursued in successive 
Autumns; and now, on the eve of returning 
to my more laborious and anxious employment, 
I commit the fruit of many pleasant hours 
to the press. Let me hope that my young 
friends, at any rate, will give me their thanks 
for stories which assuredly have enough in them 
to engage their liveliest interest, if they be not 
spoiled in the telling. 

Under your Presidency my humbler task com- 
menced. With your name I am glad to connect 
my bolder venture. My little volume will thus 
become the memorial of a friendship which has 
lasted through nearly a quarter of a century, and 
has proved to me a continual source of pleasure 
and improvement. Our meetings now are fewer 
than they used to be. Occasions are scarcely 
found, amid the ceaseless occupations and dis- 
tractions of busy London life, for free and full 
discourse on things new and old, far off and near, 
such as we held many a time, in-doors or out-of- 
doors, when we were country neighbours in the 

a4 



Vlll 



DEDICATOET LETTER. 



best sense. But the memory of those peaceful 
years remains ; the profit of them, in connection 
with my privileged access to your hospitable 
home, I gratefully acknowledge ; and if my book 
shall afford some entertainment to yourselves, 
and some instruction to your children, it will 
be but a small return in kind for what I have 
received already, and can never lose. 

I am, 
Your affectionate Friend, 

J. H. GITRNEY. 

Bonchurch, 
Oct. 29. 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Table of European Sovereigns x 

Chronological Table xii 

CHAPTER I. 

Disastrous Reign of Charles VI. 1 

CHAPTER II. 
Joan of Arc - 7 

Notes and Illustrations - - - - 86 

CHAPTER III. 

Invention of Printing - - - - -101 

CHAPTER IV. 
Caxton 127 

Notes and Illustrations - - - - 168 

CHAPTER V. 

Forerunners and Patrons of Columbus - - 179 

CHAPTER VI. 
Columbus ------- 198 

Notes and Illustrations _ - - - 307 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Reformation Age - - - - - 319 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Luther - 342 

Notes and Illustrations - 492 



TABLE OE SOVEREIGNS, 



WHO REIGNED IN EUROPE FROM A.D. 1400 TO A.D. 1546, 



WITH THE DATES OF THEIR ACCESSION. 



A.D. 


Germany. 


Spain. 


Portugal. 


1385 


. 




John I. 


1390 


- 


Henry HX 




1400 


Rupert. 






1406 


- 


John II. 




1410 


f Jossus. 

\ Sigismund. : 






1433 


- 


- 


Edward. 


1438 


Albert II. 


. 


Alfonso V. 


1440 


Frederic ILL 






1454 


- 


Henry IV. 




1476 


- 


f Ferdinand 
\ and Isabella. 




1481 


- 


- 


JohnH. 


1493 


Maximilian I. 






1495 


- 


- 


Emmanuel. 


1516 




Charles I. of 
Spain (the 
Emperor 
Charles V.). 




1519 


Charles V. 






1521 


■ 




John HI. 



TABLE OF SOVEREIGNS. 



XI 



TABLE OF SOVEREIGNS — continued. 



A. D. 


England. 


France. 


Roman See. 


1380 




Charles VI. 




1389 


- 


- 


Boniface LX. 


1399 


Henry IV. 






1404 


- 


- 


Innocent VHL 


1406 


- 


- 


Gregory XVI. 


1409 


- 


- 


Alexander V. 


1410 


-' 


. 


John XXI. 


1413 


Henry V. 






1417 


- 


. 


Martin V. 


1422 


Henry VI. 


Charles VII. 




1431 


- 


- 


Eugene TV. 


1447 


- 


- 


Nicholas V. 


1455 


- 


- 


Calixtus HI. 


1458 


- 


- 


PiusH. 


1461 


Edward IV. 


Lewis XL 




1464 


- 


- 


PaulH. 


1471 


- 


- 


Sixtus rv. 


1483 


C Edward V. ? 
1 Richard HL J 


Charles VHL 




1484 


- 


- 


Innocent VHL 


1485 


Henry VII. 






1493 


- 


. 


Alexander VI. 


1498 


- 


Lewis XII. 




1503 


- 




fPiusin. 
|_ Julius H. 


1509 


Henry VIH. 






1513 


- 


- 


LeoX. 


1515 


- 


Francis I. 




1522 


- 


- 


Adrian VI. 


1523 


- 


- 


Clement VTL 


1534 


- 


" 


Paul HI. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



CHAPTEES I. and II. 

1396. Charles VI. smitten with madness. 

The King ruled by Philip of Burgundy. 

Contest between John Duke of Burgundy and Louis 
Duke of Orleans. 
1407. Assassination of the Duke of Orleans. 
1412. Disorders and civil war in France. 

Joan of Arc born. 
1415. Oct. 25. Battle of Agincourt. 

Anarchy in the capital and provinces. 

1419. Assassination of the Duke of Burgundy. 
Connivance of the Dauphin. 

1420. Treaty of Troyes. 

1422. Death of Henry V. and Charles VI. 

Charles VII. neglects his kingly duties. 

Successes of the English. 
1425. Joan of Arc begins to hear her Voices. 

1428. Duke of Bedford lays siege to Orleans. 
Joan's visits to Vaucouleurs. 

Is repulsed by Baudricourt, but prevails by im- 
portunity. 
Refuses to visit Duke of Lorraine. 

1429. February. Starts on her journey to the Court. 
Perils of her journey. 

First meeting with Charles at Chinon. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Xlll 

1429. Is sent to Poictiers for examination by the Uni- 
versity. 

Her bearing and answers before the doctors. 

Her mission is approved. 

Her banner is prepared. 

Her fame reaches Orleans. 

April. An army gathered at Blois. 

Joan summons the English by letter to leave the 
country. 

Advances to the relief of Orleans. 

Succeeds in her first military adventure. 

Meeting with Dunois. 

April 29. Enters Orleans by night. 

Has Te Deum chanted in the Cathedral by torch- 
light. 

Courage of the garrison revived. 

May 4. The first English fort taken. 

May 5. Ascension Day religiously observed in Or- 
leans. 

May 6. Kenewed fighting; more English forts 
taken. 

May 7. Last sortie from Orleans. 

Joan commands and heads the attack. 

Hard day's fighting ; Joan wounded ; last fort taken. 

Midnight Hymn of Praise in the Cathedral. 

May 8., Sunday. English raise the siege. 

Battle offered by them, but declined at the bidding 
of Joan. 

Mass celebrated in the open air. 

Joan presses for instant march to Rheims. 

Is overborne by generals. 

June 18. Decisive victory over the English at Patay. 

Advance to Rheims. 

Burst of popular enthusiasm. 

July 8. Troyes taken. 



XIV CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1429. Joan saves the French prisoners. 
July 15. Charles enters Rheims. 
July 17. Is crowned there. 
Joan's address to the King. 

Her letter to the Duke of Burgundy. 

Her longing for home. 

Is persuaded to remain with the army. 

Her mission less clear ; her Voices less express. 

Sept. 8. Assault on Paris. 

It fails, and Joan's reputation declines. 

Her family ennobled by the King. 

Domremy, at her request, exempted from taxation. 

Her piety and simplicity in the camp. 

1430. Compiegne assaulted by the Duke of Burgundy. 
Joan comes to its rescue with the royal army. 
May 23. Heads a sortie, and is captured. 
Many causes at work for her ruin. 

November. Is sold by the Duke of Burgundy to 

the English. 
Is claimed by Cauchon Bishop of Beauvais. 
Is surrendered to him for trial. 
Is confined meanwhile at Beaurevoir. 
Throws herself from the castle walls. 

1431. Jan. 9. Judicial proceedings commenced at Rouen. 
Feb. 21. Joan's first appearance before the Court. 
Charges against her. 

Disputes with Judges about her oath. 
Repeats the story about her Voices. 
Joan a heretic or a witch. 
Irrelevant questions on either supposition. 
Voices with her in prison. 
Joan's patience and cleverness. 
Refuses to condemn herself. 
March 31. Joan's final answer. 
Bedford presses for a conviction. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XV 

1431. May 9. Joan threatened with the rack. 
May 19. Judgment given against her. 
May 23. Joan recants at place of execution. 
May 30. Again before her judges. 
June 1. Is publicly burnt. 
Impression produced on spectators. 
English party continually weakened. 
Dec. 16. Henry VI. crowned at Paris. 

1435. Peace of Arras between Charles and the Duke of 

Burgundy. 

1436. Paris taken by Royalists. 

1440. Duke of Orleans restored to France. 

1449. Normandy reconquered. 

1451. Guienne recovered from the English. 

Their continental possessions reduced to Calais. 



CHAPTER ni. 



Invention of Printing involved in obscurity. 

Commercial reason for this uncertainty. 

Guttenberg assumed to be Inventor at Mayence 
Jubilee. 
1430. Traditionary date of earliest printing at Haerlem. 
1436. Guttenberg resident at Strasburg. 
1439. Is party to a lawsuit there. 
1442. Joins Fust at Mayence. 

Prints there with Fust and Schoeffer. 
1455. Partnership dissolved, and Guttenberg goes else- 
where. 
1457. New art first alluded to in book printed by Fust and 

Schoeffer. 
1462. Mayence taken, and printers scattered. 
1466. Fust died. 
1492. Schoeffer died. 



XVI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1428. Caxton apprenticed. 

1441. His master dies, leaving him twenty marks. 

Goes abroad, and engages in commercial transactions. 

His vocation uncertain. 
1464. Negotiates a commercial treaty between England 
and Burgundy. 

Enters the service of the Duchess of Burgundy. 

Begins to translate a French Romance into English. 
1471. Finishes his translation at Cologne. 

Uncertain where he learnt the printing art, but 
probably at Cologne. 

1473. Probable date of Caxton's first publication. 

1474. Prints the Game of Chess. 

Prints the Life of Jason, probably in England. 
1477. Sayings of Philosophers, printed at Westminster. 

Caxton labours steadily as Translator and Printer. 

Publishes Romances. 

His friendship with Lord Rivers. 

Moral publications. 

Account of Pilgrimage of the Soul. 

Historical publications. 

JEsop's Fables, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. 

English Language modified in Caxton's time. 

Religious publications. 
1490. Translates Art and Craft to know well to die. 

Prints it. 
1492. Caxton dies. 

His memory dear to all who love a book. 



CHAPTER V. 



1412. Cape Non passed by Portuguese Navigators. 

Prince Henry devotes himself to maritime science. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xvii 

1418. Sends out his first exploring vessel; Porto Santo 

discovered. 

1419. Madeira discovered. 
1433. Cape Bojador passed. 

Cape de Yerde reached. 

The Torrid Zone found not destructive of life. 
Cape de Verde Islands and Azores discovered. 
Papal grant to Portugal of land between Cape Non 

and India. 
1473. Prince Henry died. 

John II. follows up his discoveries. 
Hopes to reach India by sailing round Africa. 
Gulf of Guinea explored ; Equator passed. 
1486. Bartholomez Diaz reaches Cape of Good Hope. 

Compelled to return without penetrating to Indian 

Sea. 
Settles in Abyssinia. 
Covillam reports that India may be reached by the 

Cape of Good Hope. 

1497. July. Vasco »e Gam a sails with exploring expe- 

dition. 
Sails round Southern Coast of Africa. 

1498. March. Reaches Mozambique. 
Crosses Indian Ocean to Calicut. 



1454. John II., King of Castile, died. 

Leaves behind him Henry, Alfonso and Isabella. 

Castile included three-fourths of Modern Spain. 

Henry IY. a feeble and oppressive Sovereign. 

Insurrection headed by Marquis of Villena. 
1465. Henry formally deposed, and Alfonso proclaimed 
King. 



XVlll CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1465. Nation divided between two Kings. 
Civil war, and doubtful results. 

1468. Death of Alfonso. 

Throne offered by insurgent party to Isabella. 
Refused by her. 

The confederates make peace with Henry. 
Isabella declared presumptive heiress to the Crown. 
Sought in marriage by Princes of Aragon, Portugal, 

France, and England. 
Henry favours King of Portugal. 
Isabella prefers Ferdinand of Aragon. 

1469. Fearing violence she flies to Valladolid. 
Negotiates her own treaty of marriage. 
Summons Ferdinand to her help. 

Oct. 19. Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Their characters. 
1474. Henry dies. 

King of Portugal takes up cause of Joanna, the bas- 
tardized daughter of Henry's wife. 

Invades Castile. 

Isabella deserted by influential friends. 

Her noble qualities shine out. 
1476. Victory gained by her forces at Toro. 
1479. Peace concluded. 

Isabella's wise and righteous government. 
1481. Commencement of last war with the Moors. 



CHAPTER VI. 



1436. Supposed date of Columbus's birth. ' 

He studies for a short time at University of Pavia. 
1450. Goes to sea. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XIX 

1450. Serves in maritime and warlike enterprizes of the 
Mediterranean. 
Becomes a hardy and skilful navigator. 
1470. Arrives in Portugal. 

Marries the daughter of one of Prince Henry's 

captains. 
Lives with his mother-in-law. 
Receives charts and journals of her deceased 

husband. 
Has his mind occupied with thoughts of undiscovered 

countries to the West. 
Assisted in his speculations by his brother-in-law. 
Collects facts and observations from all quarters. 
1474. His theories assume a definite shape. 

Makes sure that India may be reached by sailing 

westward. 
Corresponds with Toscanelli, a learned Florentine. 
1481. John II. ascends the throne. 

Columbus makes overtures to him. 
Confides to the King his maps and charts. 
John makes a treacherous use of them. 
1484. Columbus leaves Portugal in disgust. 
1486. Arrives at Palos in Spain. 

Makes a convert of Marchena, a friar. 
Is sent on by him to the Court. 
Introduced to Cardinal Mendoza and Ferdinand. 
Referred by the King to University of Salamanca. 
• Unfolds his plans. 
Answers all objections. 

Appeals to the electors on Christian grounds. 
His scheme pronounced impracticable. 
1491. Returns to Palos wearied out by delay and dis- 
appointment. 
Turns his thoughts towards France. 
Arrested by Marchena, and invited back to Court, 
a 2 



XX CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1491. Returns, and witnesses the fall of Granada. 

1492. His terms rejected as extravagant. 
Columbus repulsed, and again recalled. 
Isabella adopts the scheme. 

His terms all granted. 

Palos selected as the starting-place. 

August 3. Columbus sails with three small vessels. 

September 6. Leaves Canary Islands. 

September 9. Passes Ferro. 

Variation of the needle. 

Ships come within range of trade-wind. 

The crew frightened at these novelties. 

Columbus tries all expedients to encourage them. 

Indications of land. 

September 25. Disappointed hopes. 

Growing discontent and threatened mutiny. 

Columbus immovable. 

Favourable signs multiply. 

Oct. 11. Columbus sees a light on shore. 

Oct. 12. Landing at San Salvador. 

Meeting with the natives. 

Oct. 28. Cuba discovered. 

Columbus occupied in cruising along it. 

Dec. 6, Hayti discovered ; named Hispaniola. 

Friendly intercourse with natives. 

Pinzon, with one of the three ships, separated from 
the others. 

Dec. 25. Columbus's ship wrecked. 

His account of the country and people. 

Divides his crews, and forms settlement in His- 
paniola. 

1493. Jan. 4. Sails for Spain with his single remaining 

vessel. 
Encounters fearful tempests. 
Feb. 15. Comes within sisrht of the Azores. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXI 

1493. March 4. Beaches the mouth of the Tagus. 
Courteously entertained by King John. 
March 15. Reaches Palos. 

His reception in Spain. 

Meeting with Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona. 

Prepares for second expedition. 

Sept. 23. Sails again from Palos. 

Discovers Guadaloupe, Dominica, and Porto Rico. 

Nov. 28. Reaches Hispaniola, and finds settlement 

in ruins. 
Disasters occasioned by Spanish violence and crime. 

1494. Difficulties of Columbus. 
Discontent of settlers. 

Their lust for gold, and hatred of control. 

Sanguine hopes of Columbus. 

His mild and upright government. 

Sails on exploring voyage. 

April 29. Cruises along Southern Coast of Cuba. 

Discovery of Jamaica. 

Concludes that Cuba is a continent. 

July 7. Wise address of a native chief. 

Columbus returns to Hispaniola. 

Finds his brother Bartholomew awaiting him. 

Adventures of Bartholomew ; his character. 

Distracted state of the island. 

Two leaders of the malcontents sail for Spain. 

Hostile League amongst the native chiefs. 

Caonabo, the most formidable of them, captured. 

His noole character, and death. 

1495. An army collected against the Spaniards. 
March 27. Decisive victory over Indians. 
Their spirit broken ; their land subdued. 
Columbus pursued by slanderers. 

Margarita and Father Boyle traduce his Government 
at home. 

a 3 



XX11 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1495. Aguado sent as Commissioner from Spain to inves- 

tigate the charges. 
Columbus receives him with respect. 
Resolves to return with him to Spain. 
March 10. Sails from Hispaniola. 
June 11. Arrives at Cadiz. 

Contrast between his first reception and his second* 
Pleads his cause successfully. 
Eevives hopes and enthusiasm at Court. 

1496. Prepares for his third voyage. 
Harassing delays. 

1498. May 30. Sails with six vessels on third voyage. 
July 31. Comes within sight of Trinidad. 
August. Explores Gulf of Paria, and lands on Con- 
tinent of America. 

Theories as to the earth's shape, and the garden of 

Eden. 
Eeturns sick and weary to Hispaniola. 
Troubles there. 

Insurrection headed by Roldan. 
Firmness of his brother Bartholomew. 
Columbus obliged to grant favourable terms. 
Another insurrection, headed by Ojeda. 
Roldan an effective auxiliary to Columbus. 

1499. Hostile party formed against Columbus in Spain. 
Returned colonists in Spain carry calumnious charges 

with them. 
Isabella's confidence shaken. 

1500. Bobadilla sent out with authority to supersede 

Columbus. 
His infamous conduct. 
Columbus loyally submits himself. 
Mock trial, and unjust conviction. 
Columbus is sent in irons to Spain. 
Public indignation excited. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XX1U 

1500. Columbus's vindication of himself. 

Eestored to the Queen's favour, but deprived of his 
government. 

1501. Is roused by reports of Portuguese commerce with 

India. 
Prepares for fourth voyage. 

1502. May 9. Sails with Bartholomew. 
Is forbidden to land at Hispaniola. 
Spanish fleet lost with Bobadilla and Roldan. 
Columbus sails for South American Continent. 
Misses Yucatan and Mexico. 

Explores the coast between Honduras and the Gulf 
of Darien. 

1503. Winters within a hundred miles of the Pacific. 
Disastrous conflicts with natives. 
Columbus cheered by a remarkable dream. 
May 1. Sails for Hispaniola. 

June 24. Reaches Jamaica with his vessels not in 

sailing condition. 
Diego Mendez ventures in a canoe to Hispaniola. 
Columbus writes an account of his voyage for the 

Sovereigns. 

1504. Still a prisoner in Jamaica. 

Jan. 2. A mutiny among his followers. 

Supplies of food run short. 

Columbus's stratagem at time of eclipse. 

June 28. Leaves Jamaica in a vessel sent from 

Hispaniola. 
Misgovernment of Ovando. 
Misery of natives. 
Indignation of Columbus. 
Resolves to plead their cause in Spain. 
Nov. 7. Arrives there homeless, sick and poor. 
Nov. 26. Death of Isabella. 

1505. May. Columbus's last visit to Court. 

a 4 



XXIV CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1505. Claims restoration to his government. 
His suit rejected by Ferdinand. 

1506. May 20. Ascension Day. Death of Columbus. 
His character. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Commencement of a new sera. 

Effects of Discovery of Printing. 

Effects of Discovery of a New Continent. 
1500. Discovery of Brazil. 
1513. Balboa crosses Isthmus of Darien to the Pacific. 

1520. Magellan sails round South America to Pacific 

Ocean. 

1521. Conquest of Mexico by Cortes. 
1531. Pizarro sails for Peru. 

Consolidation of the European Kingdoms. 

Empire of Charles V. 

Growing strength of the Monarchy in England, 

France and Spain. 
Lessening influence of the Papacy before the 

Reformation. 
Writings of Erasmus. 
Scandals at Rome. 
1484. Innocent VIII. ; his avarice and licentiousness. 
1493. Alexander VI. ; his profligacy, and sanction of his 

son's outrageous crimes. 
1503. Julius II.; his unscrupulous policy, and delight in 

war. 
1513. Leo X.; his love of literature, ease, and pleasure. 
Advancement of learning. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXV 



CHAPTER VIII. 



1483. Birth and parentage of Luther. 

His school days. 

Early hardships. 

Cherished by Ursula Cotta. 
1501. Removes to the University of Erfurth. 

Meets with a Latin Bible there. 

Takes his Bachelor's degree. 

Dangerous illness. 
1503. Becomes a Doctor of Philosophy. 

Terrors of conscience. 

Resolves to become a Monk. 
1505. August 17. Enters an Augustinian Convent. 

His hard life there. 

Pursues his studies with eagerness. 

His disappointment and uneasiness. 

Meeting with Staupitz. 

His instruction and advice. 

Luther's gradual emancipation from the spirit of 
bondage. 

1507. May 2. Is ordained priest. 
His letter on that occasion. 

1508. Settlement at Wittemberg as Professor. 
His busy life there. 

Becomes town preacher. 
Character of his preaching. 

1511. Visit to Rome. 

His surprise at the abominations witnessed there. 
Returns to Wittemberg. 

1512. Becomes a Doctor of Theology. 
Traits of Christian character. 

1516. His abounding labours. 

1517. Tetzel and Indulgences. 

Luther meets the purchasers of Indulgences at the 
Confessional. 



XXVI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1517. His faithful admonitions. 

He preaches against Indulgences. 

Oct. 31. Affixes ninety-five Propositions against 

them to church door at Wittemberg. 
They are scattered over Europe. 
Luther alarmed at his own boldness. 

1518. His Propositions controverted. 
His answers. 

Is summoned before the Pope's Legate at Augsburg. 
His appeal to the Pope letter informed. 

1519. July. His disputation at Leipsic. 
His Commentary on the Galatians. 
His popular writings. 

The Elector Frederic. 

He protects Luther. 

Melancthon. 

Friendship between him and Luther. 

Progress of Luther's mind. 

1520. His works on the Reformation of Religion and Baby- 

lonish Captivity. 
The Pope's Bull of Excommunication. 
December 10. Luther burns it. 

1521. Diet or Worms. 

March 24. Luther summoned before it. 

April 2. Leaves Wittemberg. 

His journey. 

Stops at Erfurth, and preaches there. 

His courage and resolution. 

April 16. Arrival at Worms. 

April 17. His first appearance before the Diet. 

Acknowledges his books ; asks time to answer. 

April 18. Refuses to retract. 

His noble reply. 

Popular enthusiasm in his favour. 

Has friends among the German princes. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXVU 

1521. Condemnation by the Emperor. 
Attempts to bring Luther to submission. 

April 25. Interview with the Archbishop of Treves. 

Luther leaves Worms. 

Final Edict of the Diet. 

Luther, and all who favoured him, proscribed. 

His journey homeward. 

May 2. Visits Eisenach, and preaches there. 

Is seized on the road, and carried prisoner to the 

Wartburg. 
Sheltered there by the Elector of Saxony. 
Advantages of retirement. 
Letters from his Patmos. 
Begins his Translation of the -Bible. 
Controversial and practical works. 
Perplexity as to Monastic Vows. 
Enquiries after Luther. 
Progress of Eeformation. 
The Lord's Supper supersedes the Mass at Wit- 

temberg. 
Outbreak of fanaticism. 
Remonstrances from Luther. 

1522. March 3. He leaves the Wartburg. 
March 9. Preaches at Wittemberg. 
His exhortation to patience and charity. 
His success. 

September. His German New Testament finished, 

and sent forth. 
Eeceived with eagerness by the people. 

1523. The Decree of Worms not executed. 

Diets held ; new Popes elected ; nothing done against 
Luther. 

1524. War of the Peasants. 
Their twelve Articles. 
They appeal to Luther. 
His answer. 



XXV111 CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1524. Remonstrates with the nobles, and dissuades the 

people from revolt. 

1525. War concluded with dreadful slaughter. 
Luther's grief and passion. 

June 14. His marriage. 

History of Catherine Bora. 

His justification of himself. 

Reasons against it. 

His happy home. 

Little John and Magdalene. 

Luther's poverty and disinterestedness. 

His controversies. 

Henry VHI. 

Erasmus publishes on the Freedom of the Will. 

December. Luther replies in his Bondage of the Will. 

Zwinglius. 

Doctrine of the Church of Rome. 

Doctrine of the Sacramentarians. 

Luther's doctrine of Consubstantiation. 

(Ecolampadius and Bucer. 
1527. The Pope and the Emperor engaged in hostilities. 

June 6. Rome taken and sacked. 
1529. October. The Turks besiege Vienna, and are re- 
pulsed. 

Attempted reconciliation between Swiss and German 
Reformers. 

Luther's intolerance the chief obstacle to peace. 

His patience and charity in other things. 

Settlement of religious worship and ceremonies. 

Evangelical Pastors provided. 

Luther's care for the young. 

Disposal of Endowments. 

Spoliation of Ecclesiastical property arrested by 
Luther. 

Diet or Spires. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XXIX 

1529. April 25. Protest signed by six Princes. 

1530. Diet op Augsburg. 

Confession of Faith drawn up by Melancthon. 
June 26. Publicly read before the Emperor. 
Aug. 3. A Refutation read by the adverse party. 
Vain attempts at compromise. 
Decree of the Diet, a sentence of proscription against 

Protestants. 
Luther at Coburg. 
His fervent devotions. 
His despair of peace with Romanists. 
Luther's Hymns. 
Their effect upon the people. 
His popular writings. 
December 31. League of Smalcald. 

1531. Decree of Augsburg not executed. 

1532. June. Solyman invades Germany with an immense 

army. 
Protestants take advantage of Turkish invasion. 
Aug. 2. Procure from the Emperor the Truce of 

Ratisbon. 
Retreat of the Turkish army. 

1534. Disorders at Munster. 

Fanaticism and excesses of the Anabaptists. 
They get possession of the city. 
John of Leyden. 

1535. June 24. The city retaken by the Bishop 
The cause of the Reformation damaged. 
Luther's grief. 

Ascribes these disorders to the Evil One. 
His opinion on Satanic influence. 

1539. Death of Duke George. 

Accession of Lower Saxony to the cause of the 
Reformation. 

1540. Society of Jesuits founded. 



XXX CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1543. ("Luther worn out with excessive labours. 

1544. 1 Disappointed and sick at heart. 
Progress of the Reformation in Europe. 

1545. Council of Trent begins its sittings. 

1546. Luther's last journey. 
Feb. 14. His last letter. 
Feb. 17. His last sickness. 
Feb. 18. His death. 

Feb. 22. His funeral. 

His monuments in many lands. 



FKANCE LOST AND WON; 
JOAN OF AEC. 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES. 



CHAPTER I. 

REIGN OF CHARLES VI. AND ITS 
CONSEQUENCES. 

At the commencement of the fifteenth century, 
France had the misfortune to have a madman for 
her king. Charles VI., always excitable and 
impetuous, with a strong will and a feeble un- 
derstanding, had been seized in the year 1392 
with a fit of phrenzy, from the shock of which 
he never recovered. On a sultry, stifling day in 
August, as he was travelling on horseback, he 
became suddenly infuriated, and slew four of his 
attendants before he could be dismounted and 
disarmed. Fits of the same kind recurred at 
intervals throughout the remainder of his life ; 
and in his sanest moods, though gentle and kindly- 
natured, grieved for the excesses of his times of 
violence, and earnest in seeking heavenly aid by 
prayer and confession, he was quite insensible to 
reason, and would never brook control. Strange 

B 



2 BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. 

to say, when not physically disabled, he remained 
absolute master of the government ; and, for thirty 
years together, France was at the mercy of a lu- 
natic, or of the unprincipled relatives to whom he 
yielded himself in succession. Philip, Duke of 
Burgundy, the king's uncle, ruled while he lived ; 
then came a protracted contest between the Duke 
of Orleans, Charles's brother, and John, the new 
Duke of Burgundy, his cousin, which was ter- 
minated in 1407 by the murder of the 

a.d. 1407. -, -I -i -i -i 

former, — a murder planned and paid 
for by the rival Duke. The quarrel, however, 
between the two factions continued with alternate 
success, and miseries of every kind were heaped 
on the unhappy nation, while every sentiment 
of national honour was forgotten, — the Grandees 
of the kingdom not pretending, in their wars or 
treaties, to have regard to any thing but their 
own immediate interest. Each party, in turn, sued 
to our Henry IV. for assistance, and were bidding 
against each other for the disgrace of admitting a 
foreign army into France. 

Henry V. soon after his accession revived the 
old claim of Edward III. and his successors 
to the throne of France. Then eame the ter- 
Oct 25th r ^ e disaster of Agincourt, and for 
a.i>. 1415. the time the domestic quarrel was 



DISORDERS OF FRANCE. 3 

bushel; but the truce was short, and the 
calamities consequent on a state of anarchy were 
renewed in the capital and in the provinces. 
Two dauphins perished successively, after just 
reaching manhood ; and thus the period was de- 
ferred from time to time when there was any 
hope of organising a national party under an 
efficient head. At last, the rapid successes of 
the English, their conquests in the North, and 
their growing influence by means of treaties in 
the South, roused the dormant patriotism of some 
of the principal men on both sides, and it was 
proposed that a meeting should take place on a 
certain bridge between the Duke of Burgundy, 
and the new Dauphin, a youth of sixteen, who 
was completely under the influence of the ad- 
verse party. There the terms of a lasting peace 
were to be arranged ; but there, instead, a foul 
murder was perpetrated ; the Duke, in the very 
act of bending the knee to his prince, was as- 
sassinated by some of the Orleans fac- 

J A.D. 1419. 

tion, and the heir of the throne was 
an accomplice in the crime. He was in the 
hands of evil counsellors, and was persuaded, 
doubtless, that to inflict summary punishment 
on a man who had tyrannized over king and 
people, — had robbed each in turn, and sold them 

*b2 



4 TKEATY OF TKOYES. 

to the common enemy, — was a deed for which 
his country would thank him. But such crimes 
bring their own punishment ; and for a long time 
the plea of the insurrectionary party was one 
which, whether real or pretended, commanded 
some respect, that the prince was no prince for 
France who had thus defiled his conscience with 
treachery and murder. 

The disgraceful treaty of Troyes soon fol- 
lowed, by which Henry bargained to 

A.D. 1420. . . 

renounce the title of King of France, 
receiving in return the hand of the King's 
daughter, the present government of the kingdom, 
and the reversion of it on Charles's death. On 
Advent Sunday, in the year 1420, he entered 
Paris between the two men to whom he owed 
his triumph, — the King of France, and Philip, 
the new Duke of Burgundy, his unprincipled 
ally. The citizens looked on in wonder, and 
were sunk so low as to welcome any change 
which promised them exemption from plunder and 
massacre. They saw the two kings go together 
to Notre Dame, but it was the English king who 
went thence to the Louvre, and his rights as 
Regent were immediately exercised by his sum- 
moning the Estates to meet, and sanction what 
had been done at Troyes. 



CHARLES THE SEVENTH. 5 

In less than two years, however, both kings 
were dead, Charles surviving his son- 

A. D. 1422. 

in-law a few weeks; and the double 
crown descended to our baby-king, Henry VI., 
who, happily, was never strong enough to keep 
what had been so ill gotten. Charles VII. 
was a full-grown man, nearly twenty, but for 
the purposes of government hardly better than 
a child. Devoted to pleasure, and swayed by 
successive favourites, he was contented with the 
state of royalty, and cared little for his own 
dishonour, or the degradation of his kingdom. 
France, South of the Loire, was mostly his; the 
Northern portion was possessed and ruled by the 
Duke of Bedford, Henry the Fifth's brother, as 
regent for his nephew. For a long time together, 
little was done in the way of active military 
operations. Troubles at home made Bedford in- 
active; and on the French side all was feeble- 
ness and disunion. The Duke of Orleans, the 
natural head of a national party, if Charles de- 
serted his post, was a prisoner in England; and 
though the treaty of Troyes should have set him 
at liberty, if it were to make the two countries 
one for good as well as evil, he was thought too 
dangerous a person to be restored to France. 
The great chiefs of the kingdom, many of them, 

B 3 



6 SIEGE OF OKLEANS. 

had made their own terms with the English, and 
were content to rule their principalities as inde- 
pendent sovereigns. The great monarchy, which 
had been built up by successive kings of France, 
seemed to be crumbling to pieces ; and, worst of 
all, the nation seemed to have lost heart and hope. 
In the autumn of 1428, the Duke of 

A.D. 1428. .-ii 

Bedford, having received a large rein- 
forcement from England, determined to prosecute 
the war south of the Loire, and accordingly laid 
siege to Orleans, which commands the passage of 
the river. He contemplated a speedy capture, 
probably ; but France, by that time, had reached 
her lowest point, and was raised up again almost 
by miracle. At this period the public events of 
the day become connected with the adventures of 
Joan of Arc; and, in telling her story, we shall 
be describing the steps by which it pleased 
God to recover the foremost nation of Continental 
Europe from death to life. 



CHAPTER II. 

JOAN OF ARC. 

[As the facts of the following story are so marvellous, 
it is very important that we should understand how they 
are authenticated. Joan of Arc was tried by her enemies 
before her death, and condemned. Many years after- 
wards she was tried again, — that is, her fair fame was 
put upon its trial, — by Charles VIL, and friendly wit- 
nesses bore willing testimony in her favour. The evi- 
dence given on both trials is among the historical records 
of France, and has lately been published in an accessible 
and readable form. In the course of the two investiga- 
tions Joan's whole life was brought out to view. Every 
fact, great and small, that related to her was most fully 
detailed. What was spoken by her friends seems, in 
general, probable and trustworthy; but we shall quote 
mostly from the report of her enemies ; and all that tells 
in her favour, when adopted by men who hated and 
killed her, may be taken as proved beyond any reasonable 
doubt.] 

Joan of Arc* was a peasant's child, Joan's early 
and born in the village of Domreiny, ^ ears - 
in Lorraine. Her own account , at her trial, 
makes the year of her birth 1411, or the begin- 
ning of 1412. There is conflicting evidence as 

* See NOTE (A). 

B 4 



8 JOAN OF ATtC. 

to her home occupations in early life. Hume 
represents her to have been a groom ; others give 
her the more romantic character of a shep- 
herdess. Her own testimony, which may be 
taken implicitly as to facts within her own know- 
ledge, declares that, after she was grown up, she 
never tended cattle. But many of those who 
knew her in early life, her own cousin inclusive *, 
speak of having seen her thus employed, without 
specifying her precise age; and some add that 
she went to plough sometimes with her father. 
Her education was that of the period in which 
she lived. From her mother she learnt to say 
the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, with the "Ave 
Maria," which goes along with them in the rudi- 
ments of Roman Catholic teaching. Reading and 
writing were no part of her accomplishments; but 
for spinning and sewing, she said upon her trial, 
she "did not fear any woman in Rouen." She 
was remarkable for her extreme bashfulness, and 
was known among the neighbours for a kind- 
hearted creature, always ready to nurse the sick 
or relieve the stranger, and became a marked 
person in the little village of Domremy, for the 
gravity of her character and the ardour of her 

* See NOTE (B). 



JOAN OF ARC. 9 

devotions. She went often to confession, and was 
sometimes seen to kneel and pray in the fields.* 
When her day's work was done, she would run to 
the church, and sometimes spend hours before the 
altar in prayer or silent contemplation. She used 
to call the sexton to account if he missed ringing 
the bell for prayers, and promised to give him 
something if he were more regular. Saint Ca- 
therine and Saint Margaret were her favourite 
saints, and she loved to deck their images with 
flowers, and to burn candles in honour of the 
Virgin. 

The country immediately about Domremy, like 
the rest of France, was divided between the En- 
glish and French factions, or the Burgundians and 
Armagnacs, as the other party was often called 
after a leading man on the national side, The 
people of Joan's village, with one exception, 
were zealous royalists; but some of their neigh- 
bours were Burgundians ; and the flame of her 
patriotism was kept alive by feuds and dangers 
such as civil war can hardly fail to bring in its 
train. The children had their fights ; Joan's 
own brothers were sometimes among the combat- 
ants, and came home with honourable wounds, 

* See NOTE (C). 



10 JOAN OF ARC. 

and their tale of victory or defeat. On one 
occasion, war was presented to her in its sterner 
aspect. Domremy was taken possession of by a 
troop of the adverse party, and the inhabitants 
fled to a neighbouring town with so much of 
their property as they could carry with them. 
When they returned, .the church was a ruin ; 
the enemy had burnt it ; and from that hour, 
doubtless, rebellion would be associated with 
sacrilege in the mind of Joan, and the religious 
sentiment, which coloured her whole life, would 
be yet more closely blended with devotion to 
her Prince. 

Joan's With scenes like these before her eyes, 

voices. J oan grew up serious and thoughtful 
beyond her years. When she was thirteen she 
began to hear what she called her " Voices. " 
These, we are sure, were but the whispers of her 
own excited fancy ; but to her they seemed as 
real as if some heavenly messenger had stood 
visibly by her side. With her fervent religious 
feelings there were mingled thoughts of her 
unhappy country, and earnest longings for its 
rescue. A prophecy had become current that 
France was to be saved by a woman, as it 
had been ruined by a woman ; and her solitary 
musings, doubtless, began to shape themselves 



JOAN OF ARC. 11 

into some vague, dreamy hopes that she might be 
called to this glorious work. At any rate, strange 
as the phenomenon may seem, and assured as 
we are that she was no inspired prophetess, 
but a mistaken enthusiast, to her statements, so 
far as they describe her own convictions, we 
give implicit belief. Too simple to construct a 
plot, she was also too good to attempt decep- 
tion; for, amidst all that was superstitious in 
her devotions, there was yet the trusting faith 
and love of a sincere Christian. We grieve per- 
petually, as we follow one so pure and single- 
hearted, to find the debasing element of Roman 
Catholic worship mixing itself with her holiest 
thoughts and feelings. Gladly would we hear 
less of the Virgin, and St. Margaret, and St. Ca- 
therine. But while she believed what her priest 
had taught her, we cannot doubt, looking at her 
meekness, her charity, her religious zeal, her noble 
self-devotion, that she had that better teaching 
which is vouchsafed to the humble, and that 
she served God, in her strange eventful course, 
according to her light. 

Joan's own account was as follows. She was 
in her father's garden, on a summer's day, at noon. 
She had fasted on the preceding day. She heard 
something on her right side, towards the church. 



12 JOAN OF ARC. 

and a dazzling light accompanied the sound. She 
was frightened at first, but still thought it was 
a good voice, and that it came from God. It 
charged her to be a good girl and go to church ; 
and when she had heard it thrice, she made sure 
it was an angel speaking to her. Then, or shortly 
afterwards, St. Michael stood visibly before her, 
and a crowd of angelic messengers were about 
him. " I saw them," she said, when closely- 
pressed at Rouen, " with my bodily eyes as 
plainly as I see you ; and when they left me, I 
wept, and longed that they would take me away 
too." St. Margaret and St. Catherine were her 
visitants at another time, and they had rich and 
beautiful crowns upon their heads. Two and 
three times a week she saw the visions, or heard 
the voices. Then came messages as to her own 
calling and future destiny. She must not stay 
where she was, but must go to France, — that 
being the name by which the provinces forming 
the crown domain were specially designated. She 
would carry succours to her prince, and help him 
to recover his kingdom. She must go to Van- 
couleurs, and seek out Robert de Baudricourt, who 
commanded there, and he would give her some 
men to go with her. * But I am a poor girl," 
was her answer ; a I know not how to ride, or to 



JOAN OF ARC. 13 

lead troops to battle." " Thou shalt go to Mon- 
sieur de Baudricourt, captain of Vancouleurs," 
was the reply, " and he will take thee before the 
King." 

During this period the maid was living alone in 
the world of her own pure thoughts and excited 
feelings. Providence seemed to be pointing out 
some path of heroic enterprise in which she was to 
walk, and the more steadily she looked at it, the 
more her gentle nature shrank from the first step 
of her fated journey. No creature was in her 
confidence. Her inward convictions grew in in- 
tensity and strength; but, as she felt herself to 
be chosen of God to work out the deliverance of 
France, it became her to watch most carefully 
lest by any indiscretion she should commit herself 
too soon. She did not consult with the priest, 
she says, for fear her secret should get abroad, and 
the Burgundians might hear of it, and make her 
journey to the prince impossible. She did not 
breathe it to her parents ; for her father, she was 
sure, would never permit her to depart on such a 
mission. His suspicions had been excited some- 
how, — possibly by the interest which Joan must 
necessarily have taken in the events of the war, — 
by questions, it may be, from which she could not 
refrain when a stray soldier, or some traveller from 

*B 7 



14 JOAN OF ARC. 

a distance, passed through the quiet village of 
Doinremy; at any rate, he had dreamed that 
Joan would go along with the soldiers some day; 
and this was reported by her mother, with the 
addition that he had said afterwards to her bro- 
thers, * f If I thought this girl of mine would ever 
come to that, I would let you drown her ; and if 
you would not do it, I would drown her myself." 
Amid perplexities and mental conflicts which such 
circumstances would necessarily occasion to a 
person intent only on doing right, Joan reached 
her seventeenth year. The fair city of Orleans, 
the last hope of France, was pressed more and 
more closely by the English armies. To save 
the kingdom, and to settle its rightful prince se- 
curely on the throne, became the passionate wish 
of Joan's heart, to which every other feeling was 
subordinate. The voices became more explicit. 
Two things she was commissioned to do, and God 
and His saints would help her till they were done. 
She was to raise the siege of Orleans, and she was 
to conduct the Dauphin to Rheims to receive the 
crown of his ancestors. 

Something must be done in obedience 

Visit to ° 

Vancou- to these commands, and if no assist- 
ance can be got from her nearest friends, 
she must seek advisers elsewhere. It chanced 



JOAN OF ARC. 15 

that a brother of her mother's lived between 
Domremy and Vancouleurs; so she contrived 
a visit to him, told him of the necessity that 
was laid upon her to begin her work, and 
begged him to assist her so far as to announce 
her mission to Baudricourt, who was to set her 
forward on her journey. Her earnestness and 
importunity prevailed ; honest Durand Laxart 
was the first believer in her mission ; and to Van- 
couleurs accordingly he went, and reported to 
the captain all he had heard from Joan of her 
visions, hopes and projects. "Box the girl's 
ears, and send her home," was the warrior's reply.* 
Joan, nothing daunted by this repulse, made her 
way to the town, and told her own tale to Bau- 
dricourt. At first she fared no better than her 
uncle ; the old soldier had no mind to listen to 
the dreams of a peasant girl, and thought that, 
if France was to be saved, it must be by wiser 
heads and stronger arms. But having taken the 
first step, the Maid was proof against all discou- 
ragement. She took lodgings in the town, and 
talked freely of her mission to all comers. Whole 
days were passed at church ; and her pure simple 
manners, coupled with the fervour of her devo- 

* See NOTE (D). 



16 JOAN OF ARC. 

tions, commended her to many among the crowd. 
A gentleman, named Jean de Metz, met her in 
the street, and accosted her thus : " What is your 
business here, my child ? We must make up our 
minds to see the king hunted from his kingdom, 
and must then turn English ourselves." We 
have her answer on record ; he swore to it in 
after years, and the words, we are sure, were the 
very echo of her thoughts at this crisis of her 
history ; — " Ah ! the Sire de Baudricourt does 
not heed me, or care for what I tell him ; and 
yet I must be with the Dauphin before Mid-lent, 
though to reach him I should wear my legs 
through to my knees ; for no one else in the world, 
neither king nor duke, can recover this realm of 
France. There is no help for it but in me. And 
yet I would rather stay at home, and spin by my 
poor mother's side, for this is no work for me. 
But go I must, and do what I say ; for my Lord 
so wills it." " And who is your Lord ? " asked 
the gentleman. " God," she replied. Her 
words sounded like the voice of inspiration to 
the astonished enquirer ; and he promised, that 
very hour, that he would conduct her to the 
King. 

Joan's fame, it seems, had reached the Duke of 
Lorraine, who was then suffering from illness. 



JOAN OF ARC. 17 

A person of her pretensions, he thought, might 

effect a cure which his physicians had , , 

Joan s so- 
attempted in vain, and he sent for her briety and 

accordingly. She answered that she 
had no light from heaven upon that matter; 
but charged him, as a Christian man, to put 
away his mistress and take back his wife. Let 
him help her to the Dauphin, she added, for 
her mission was to him, and him only ; and then 
she would thank him, and pray for his re- 
covery. This anecdote is worth preserving as 
a specimen of the Maid's perfect truthfulness and 
simplicity. She could never be seduced to pre- 
tend to powers which she had not. Even to win 
a powerful friend at that particular time she 
would not tamper with her mission. A troop of 
horse to guard her, and a letter from a great 
prince of France to ensure an audience with the 
King, she would gladly have bought at any price. 
Had she parleyed with the Duke, and given him 
some pretended charm, she might probably have 
been far upon her journey in a day. But God, 
she always said, had not spoken to her on matters 
of that sort. She had received from Him no gifts 
of healing. In one character, and in one only, did 
she ever pretend to be exalted above the crowd ; 
and no solicitations from princes or from meaner 
c 



18 JOAN OF ARC. 

men could induce her to wander a step beyond the 
path which she supposed to be marked out for her. 
Baudricourt, it is said, had communicated in 
the meantime with the Court, and had the royal 
permission to send on the Maid. At the command 
of her Voices she now assumed male apparel, 
and wore it ever afterwards. The captain gave 
her a sword for a parting present, but distrusted 
her too much to advance money for her journey. 
Among the people some were found more hopeful 
or more generous, who subscribed sixteen francs 
for the purchase of a horse ; and, thus provided, 
she began her journey of a hundred and fifty 
leagues. Jean de Metz, and another gentleman 
of kindred spirit, bore her company, with two 
attendants and two men-at-arms. 
Journey to -^ was m tne mon th of February, 
Chinon. 1429? that this little party rode out 
of Yancouleurs. Some months, therefore, had 
elapsed since Joan's first visit to Baudricourt, 
which took place about Ascension Day in the 
preceding year. In the interval, it seems, she 
had been at home for a while, and afterwards re- 
turned to her uncle. The parting with her 
parents took place, not at Domremy, but at 
Yancouleurs. They pursued her thither, when 
the news of her intended journey reached them, 
and were " almost out of their senses," she says, 



JOAN OF ARC. 19 

when they found that prayers and tears could 
not turn her from her purpose. This would 
be a sad parting, and a sore conflict, for one 
like Joan; but One Yoice was to her more 
authoritative and commanding than those which 
she had obeyed from childhood; and no pro- 
phet ever felt more sure of his mission than 
she did when she took this work in hand. Her 
judges, on her trial, were sensitively alive to this 
breach of filial duty, and asked her whether she 
had done well to leave her parents against their 
will. She answered that in all things else she 
gave them reverence, and even for this act, which 
displeased them once, she had received their 
pardon. " But did you not sin in doing as you 
did ? " she was asked again. " When God com- 
manded," was her simple and pertinent reply, 
" it was right for me to do it. When God bade 
me, if I had had a hundred fathers and mothers, 
and had been a king's daughter, I would, never- 
theless, have left my home." 

The journey, besides being long and toilsome, 
had difficulties and perils of its own. The greater 
part of it lay through country possessed by the 
enemy, or made unsafe by the disorders which 
follow in the train of war. English troops had 
to be escaped, and French brigands. High roads 
c 2 



20 JOAN OF ARC. 

tv ere avoided as much as possible. Rivers were 
forded at one time, and thick forests were tra- 
versed at another. Joan never lost heart. Toils 
and dangers went for nothing now that her great 
end was gained. Her only trouble was that the 
men pushed on too fast, and would not let her 
stop for mass at every town they came to. Still 
her Voices were with her, and blessed her 
journey. " God cleared her way for her," — " her 
brothers of Paradise told her what to do," — were 
the comfortable sayings with which she cheered 
her own spirit, and tried to sustain the hopes of 
her companions. Many, however, by their own 
confession, were their doubts and misgivings as 
they travelled onward. More than once the 
thought entered their minds that Joan was a 
witch, who might lawfully be made away with ; 
but, then, what agent of darkness could be so 
clothed with purity? who but a saint of God 
could be always ready for devotion ? 

Charles was at Chinon, between 

Interview 

with the Tours and Saumur, in the valley of 
the Loire. The party halted a few 
leagues from that place, and, having announced 
their object, waited the King's permission to 
go forward. This was readily granted. Recent 
disasters, especially the battle of Herrings, 
fought just as Joan had left Vancouleurs, 



JOAN or ARC. 21 

made the situation of the Royalists yet more 
desperate, and strange remedies might well be 
tried when the emergency was so fearful. After 
three days she was admitted to the royal presence, 
singled out Charles at a glance from the crowd 
of courtiers, and embracing his knees, announced 
herself as " Joan, the Maid," sent by Heaven to 
succour him and his kingdom. "Most noble 
Dauphin," she added, " God sends you word by 
me that you shall be consecrated and crowned at 
Rheims ; and you shall be the Lieutenant of the 
King of Heaven, who is the King of France." 
Her solemn asseverations, in God's name, that 
Charles was the true heir of France, that the 
crown was his by right, and that God would give 
it him, seem to have chimed in with the train of 
his own thoughts ; for he had been discouraged 
by a long tide of evil fortune, and had connected 
them with the suspicions which hung about his 
birth. The words which Joan chanced to use re- 
assured him upon this point, and made him more 
willing to receive her as a prophetess. Still 
hope and fear were mixed together in the minds 
of the men of that age, when any person of su- 
pernatural pretensions claimed . a hearing. He 
might come from heaven or from hell ; and if 
it were a lying spirit that spoke by him, then 
c 3 



22 JOAN OP ARC. 

guilt would be contracted and loss incurred by 
those who believed the revelation. Churchmen 
must settle this question : it was too profound for 
any but holy and learned men who could inter- 
pret the will of Heaven with something of au- 
thority. 

Examination S° the Maid was carried to Poitiers, 
at Poitiers. wnere there was a famous university ; 
and priests and monks and doctors of theology 
plied her with hard questions, which were answered 
with admirable promptitude and discretion. All 
that fell from her, says an old chronicle, was spoken 
" grandement et notablement, though in all things 
else she seemed the simplest shepherd-girl that you 
could see anywhere." She told her story with simple 
dignity. Her Voices, — the Saints, — Michael, the 
Archangel, — the Lord Himself, — had bidden her 
to go to Orleans, and had promised that, when the 
enemy was driven from thence, she should lead 
the Dauphin to Rheims, to receive the crown of 
France. From this story she never varied: at 
Vancouleurs, at Chinon, at Poitiers, she claimed 
to be a prophetess to this extent and no more ; 
her credit was staked on the accomplishment of 
these two predictions ; yet, when they were ut- 
tered, Orleans was all but lost, and between that 
place and Rheims there was not a single fortified 
place held by the King's troops. In vain the 



JOAN OF ARC. 23 

doctors multiplied their interrogations, and tried 
her with new tests ; in vain, one after the other, 
they quoted to her wise saws, and explained their 
doubts with much parade of learning. " There 
is more in God's books than in yours," she told 
them : " I don't know A or B, but I come on be- 
half of the King of Heaven, and my business is 
to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown the 
King at Rheims." " But what need is there for 
men-at-arms ? " they said ; " if God will deliver 
France, He can do it of His own will." " The 
men will fight," she answered, "and God will give 
them victory." They demanded some proof that 
God had spoken by her: without a sign the 
King's troops must not be endangered. " Alas ! 
it is not at Poitiers," was the Maid's reply, "that 
I am to show you signs ; give me soldiers, be they 
few or many, and lead me to Orleans, and there 
you shall have signs that will prove my words." 

The decision of the theologians left T ^' 

& J oan s ser- 

the King free to employ the service s vices ac " 
of Joan. They reported her faith to 
be sound, and her reputation without a stain. Her 
words were those of a good Christian, and her 
manner of life was holy and devout. So she 
had a body-guard assigned to her, including 
a brave knight of mature age, a page of noble 
c 4 



24 JOAN OF ARC. 

birth, and six men of meaner rank, one of 
whom was a brother of her own. Under the 
direction of her Voices she had a white ban- 
ner prepared, which figures largely in her history. 
This she loved " forty times more than her sword ;" 
for her mission, she maintained all through, 
was not to kill, but to lead brave men to battle, 
and to cheer them on in God's name. The ban- 
ner had a white ground besprinkled with the lilies 
of France : the Saviour, too, was pictured upon 
it, holding the world in His hands, with attendant 
angels, while the words " Jesus, Maria," in legi- 
ble characters, declared to friends and foes in 
whose name she fought. 

Meanwhile the reputation of the Maid was 
spreading far and wide. It had already reached 
Orleans, and greatly encouraged Dunois, who was 
in command there, and was sorely pressed by the 
besiegers. The admiration of the common people 
was raised to enthusiasm by her look of modesty 
and words of gentleness, coupled with her assumed 
character and saintly reputation. Even rude war- 
riors, whom long years of irregular warfare had 
hardened and corrupted, could not resist her influ- 
ence. She would have none enrolled among her 
troop who had not first confessed themselves. 
Men, to whom cursing had become like their 



JOAN OF ARC. 25 

mother-tongue, restrained themselves in her pre- 
sence ; and the licence and disorder of the camp 
were checked by her indignant rebukes. Levies 
went on in the meantime, and an army for the 
relief of Orleans began to muster at Blois. Six 
thousand men were assembled by the middle of 
April ; and when the Maid gave them a meet- 
ing there, in white armour, with her head un- 
covered, seated on a black charger which she 
managed with graceful ease, the past misfortunes 
of France were forgotten ; the hearts of men and 
officers beat high with hope, and they made sure, 
like herself, of coming victory. 

From Blois Joan wrote, or rather Letter to 

the English 

dictated, a letter to the English gene- commanders. 
rals, charging them in God's name to 
save bloodshed by retiring peaceably to their 
own country. War had no delights for her, 
and she would neither fight herself, nor en- 
courage others to fight, till the stern necessity 
was forced upon her. The letter has something 
of the "heroic style" about it, as Michelet says, 
mingled with a " French vivacity" which reminds 
him of Henry IVth. One thing is quite plain, — 
its simplicity marks it for her own ; and it is inter- 
esting to see how the enduring records of her 
story coincide with the reports which reach us 



26 JOAN OF ARC. 

from so many witnesses of her words and deeds. 
" King of England," she writes, "and you, Duke 
of Bedford, calling yourself Regent of the king- 
dom of France, render up to the Maid*, who is 
sent hither by God the King of Heaven, the keys 
of all the good towns of France which you have 
taken and plundered. . . . And as for you, archers 
and men-of-war, of gentle blood or otherwise, 
before the town of Orleans, get you gone to your 
own country ; and if you fail to do so, then hear 
what I have to tell you of the Maid, who will 
come presently to do you hurt. King of England, 
if you won't do this, I am chief commander (chef 
de guerre), and wherever I shall find your people 
in France, I will make them go, whether they 
will or no ; and if they refuse, I will have them 
all killed. I am sent here by God, the King of 
Heaven, to meet you bodily, and put you out of 
France. If they will do this that I tell them, I 
will show them mercy. Do not think, then, that 
you shall hold this kingdom of France. I call 
God to witness, the King of Heaven, the Son of 

* This does not sound in Joan's usual strain. Other 
words, it seems, were substituted for her own. When 
charged upon her trial with having used language too as- 
suming, she defended herself by saying her scribes were in 
fault. " I said, Restore to the King ; they wrote, Restore 
to the Maid:' 



JOAN OF ARC. 27 

the Holy Virgin, Charles, the true heir, shall have 
it. This is revealed to him by the Maid, and he 
shall enter Paris, and many a good companion 
with him." 

The English, as might be expected, poured 
scorn upon this summons, and it became necessary 
for the Maid to do more than send words of defi- 
ance against the enemy. Her first adventure in 
war was to accompany a convoy of provisions 
which had been collected at Blois, and was intended 
for the relief of Orleans. The complete success 
of the expedition, coupled with the rumours which 
had preceded her coming, had its effect both on 
friends and foes. She had proclaimed herself chef 
de guerre to the English generals, and, acting in obe- 
dience to her Voices, she began at once to assume 
the tone of command. Dunois, the brave com- 
mander of the garrison, gave her a meeting on the 
banks of the Loire, as the party approached the 
city ; and to him she complained that the leaders 
of her party had gone against her orders, and kept 
the South side of the river, where the enemy was 
in least force. " I had so advised them," said the 
general, " and my most skilful officers did the 
same." " But the counsel of my Lord," she an- 
swered, " is wiser than that of men. You thought 
to deceive me ; but you are deceived yourselves, 



28 JOAN OF ARC. 

for I bring you the best help that was ever given 
to knight or city. It is given not for any love of 
me, but out of God's pure goodness, who has lis- 
tened to Saint Louis and Saint Charlemagne, and 
had pity on this town." 

Entry into It was night when Joan entered Or- 
A^riTIg l eans > but the whole city was astir, and 
142 9. its people came forth in crowds to wel- 
come their deliverer. Men of war marched by 
her side, and plenty came in her train; so no wonder 
that to the half- famished inhabitants, radiant as she 
was with youth and hope, she seemed like an angel 
from heaven. Women nocked about her to touch 
her garments, her charger, or her white standard ; 
but to all of them she spoke with her sweet, 
modest air, and gentle tones, bidding them hope 
in God, and not in any human instrument. After 
her day's march she would not retire to rest till 
she had committed herself and her countrymen 
to the Divine protection ; so she led the way to 
the cathedral, and there " Te Deum" was chanted 
by torchlight. 

The Maid's presence completely altered the 
position of affairs before a single blow was struck. 
For weeks past, rumour had been busy with her 
name, and a mingled tale of truth and fiction was 
sure to reach the English camp. Vague alarms 



JOAN OF ARC. 29 

began to take possession of the minds of the 
soldiery, and damped their zeal and courage. 
" Two hundred English skirmishers would have 
chased five hundred French but lately," says the 
old chronicle, recounting the change of feeling in 
the two parties ; " and now two hundred of the 
last would have been more than a match for four 
hundred English." The leaders disguised their 
apprehensions, but were no longer eager for battle ; 
so five days after the arrival of the first convoy, 
a second, with a larger force and a more abundant 
supply, came in from Blois, and Suffolk kept his 
men close within their forts, while an armed 
troop, headed by Dunois and the Maid, joined 
their friends outside, and carried them trium- 
phantly within the walls. 

The same afternoon, Joan saw fight- 
ing for the first time, and did her part first fight, 
as bravely as if war had been her ay 4 * 
trade. Not anticipating that there would be any 
occasion for her services before the morrow, 
she had retired to her lodging for an hour's re- 
pose. While she slept, a portion of the army, 
accompanied by a goodly company of towns- 
people, flushed with their recent successes, made 
an unpremeditated sally, and pushed on to one 
of the principal English forts, called St. Loup. 



30 JOAN OF ARC. 

There, however, the besiegers met them in 
considerable force, and the attacking party, 
being weak and ill-commanded, were soon re- 
pulsed. Presently the Maid was in the street*, 
riding full gallop over the stone pavement, " so 
that the sparks flew about her." Her Voices had 
roused her, she said ; her Voices guided her to 
the place of combat ; her Lord had told her all. 
Certain it is that she had started suddenly from 
her bed, had called for her squire, and armed 
herself in haste; then, complaining that the 
blood of France was being shed and they never 
told her of it, made her way straight to the gate 
of Burgundy. There she met her routed country- 
men, followed closely by their pursuers ; but her 
white standard, borne aloft, became a rallying- 
point for the fugitives. Their courage revived ; 
the tide of battle was presently turned ; and the 
contest was renewed within the English lines. 
The Maid was in the thickest of the fight, and 
neither Dunois, who had joined her as she issued 
from the city, nor the bravest captain among his 
followers, showed themselves more cool and self- 
possessed in the face of danger. Before the day 
was over, the great bastille was won, with a loss 
to the English of eight hundred men. The story 

* See NOTE (E). 



JOAN OF ARC. 31 

was current in Orleans that not a Frenchman had 
been wounded after Joan led the attack ; and, 
true or false, rumours of this sort were readily 
believed, and raised the popular enthusiasm to 
the highest pitch. The besiegers, on the other 
hand, after the events of that day, could no 
longer affect to despise the Maid. Their troops 
were beaten and disgraced ; the spell of victory 
was broken. They mocked her, and called her 
foul names, when presently afterwards she stood 
beneath one of their great towers, and bade 
them depart in God's name ; but really their 
hearts began to melt within them, and the panic 
was such throughout their camp that the leaders 
were completely bewildered, and knew not what 
to decide as to their future course. 

A brief interval was given them ; for the day 
which followed these events was the Feast of the 
Ascension, and most religiously was it kept by 
the good citizens of Orleans. Its churches re- 
sounded with mingled cries of thanksgiving and 
supplication, Joan setting the example, and 
charging her companions at arms to prepare for 
what God might send them, by repentance and 
confession. But the next day, Friday, 

J ' J May 6. 

saw the fighting renewed. Contrary to 

the Maid's advice, it was resolved to attempt the 



32 JOAN OF ARC. 

fortifications on the left bank of the Loire, where 
the enemy was weakest. For this purpose, the 
attacking party, headed by Joan and the principal 
officers, went down the river in boats, and took 
up their position on a little island separated by 
two boats' length from the shore. One of the 
forts, or bastilles, as they were called, was speedily 
surrendered by the English ; and the French com- 
manders, contented with this success, were draw- 
ing off their troops, when the besiegers, having 
the advantage of numbers, became assailants in 
their turn, and pursued their enemies to the river 
side. In the insolence of triumph, it seems, they 
called after the Maid, and applied to her some 
scornful epithets ; but as soon as she could dis- 
engage herself from the rout, she faced round, 
and put their courage to the proof. The white 
standard was again displayed ; the voice of com- 
mand again arrested the flying host. Joan herself 
advanced " a grand pas" against the enemy, and 
" the question now was which of her countrymen 
should best keep pace with her." In the fervour 
of the moment, all danger was forgotten; no 
account was taken of disparity of numbers ; the 
principal bastille, in which the English had con- 
centrated their forces, was stormed and taken ; 
and the conquerors took up their position for the 



JOAN OF ARC. 33 

night before the last stronghold of the enemy 
which remained to them on the southern bank of 
the Loire. Joan, who had fasted all day (it was 
Friday), and who had received a slight wound in 
her foot, was persuaded with difficulty to return 
to the city, and take a night's rest at her lodgings. 

The next day, the 7th of May, T , 

J J Last sortie 

was yet more glorious for the Maid from Orleans 
and France. Seven only had passed 
since she entered Orleans, and already she began 
to be impatient that the enemy were beneath its 
walls. They were still in strength on the right 
bank, and, while that was the case, the generals 
were unwilling to make any serious attack on the 
remaining bastille, called Les Tournelles. They 
would wait for reinforcements which could now 
be poured in without difficulty, and then they 
would have troops enough to storm the enemy's 
forts without leaving the city more defenceless 
than prudence would warrant. When this deci- 
sion was announced to Joan, she answered, " You 
have been to your council, and I have been to 
mine. Be sure that my Lord's design will come 
to pass, and that of men will come to nought." " I 
shall have much to do to-morrow," she added, — 
" more than I have done yet. I shall be wounded, 
and lose blood. We must be ready betimes in 

D 



JOAN OF ARC. 



the morning." So at sun-rise she presented herself 
at the gate of Burgundy, and demanded to be let 
out that she might complete the work which had 
been so well begun on the previous day. The 
officer, who kept guard there, did not recognise 
the Maid as chef de guerre, and refused to obey 
her orders. " You are a bad man," she said, 
" but whether you choose or not, the men-at-arms 
shall come out, and shall be conquerors to-day, as 
they have been before." A crowd collected, and 
the people were on her side ; so the soldier was 
obliged to yield to their threats, and the Maid 
went forth, followed by a mingled crowd of sol- 
diers and townsmen. They rushed tumultously 
to the boats, crossed the river, and began, with 
more of courage than of skill, to assail the for- 
midable bulwark of which the besiegers still kept 
possession. Dunois, and his captains, were too 
generous not to second the Maid when they found 
the attack was well begun ; so they followed in 
her track, and fought gallantly by her side. On 
the opposite bank of the Loire were some of 
England's best captains, Suffolk, Talbot, Fastolf, 
and others ; but their men would not stir against 
" the sorceress ; " dismay had spread through 
their ranks and turned brave men to cowards; 
go they looked on in silence, while Gladsdale 



JOAN OF AEC. 35 

and his company of five hundred, the flower of 
the English army, defended their post with heroic 
bravery. 

Joan was always for rapid onsets and easy 
triumphs. Delays did not enter into her reckon- 
ing. Prolonged resistance seemed almost like 
defiance of the will of heaven. When the fighting 
had lasted for many hours, and her friends were 
suffering severely from the English archers and 
artillery, she seized a scaling ladder, jumped into 
the ditch, and was in the act of mounting, when 
an arrow struck her between the neck and the 
shoulder, and, piercing the flesh, showed its point 
some inches beyond the wound. The Maid was 
frightened in the first instance, and shed tears ; 
but she soon recovered herself, saying that she 
had seen her saints, extracted the arrow with her 
own hands, had the wound hastily dressed, and 
was able to remount her horse. The day, how- 
ever, wore on; the French were dispirited, and 
Dunois was for sounding a retreat. u Wait 
awhile," cried Joan ; "we shall enter presently ; 
let your people rest, and give them something to 
eat and drink." For herself, she retired to pray ; 
and then, assured of victory, gave orders for a 
fresh assault. Presently Joan, whom the English 
had seen struck down and carried away, was be- 
D 2 



36 JOAN OF ARC. 

neath the walls, cheering on her friends ; and as 
night drew near, the enemy were wearied and 
disheartened. Then came a fresh body of assail- 
ants from the town, and, crossing a broken bridge 
on planks, attacked the fort on the side which had 
been supposed impregnable. Resistance grew 
fainter ; Gladsdale and his bravest followers were 
among the slain; and at last, after a desperate 
day's fighting, when two hundred only of the 
defenders survived, the fort was carried. 

Joan's return to the city was a march of 
triumph. The victory was decisive, and the 
credit of it, in the judgment of her countrymen, 
was all hers. Every thing had gone well since 
she entered Orleans. The city had a store of 
provisions ; the enemy was panic-struck ; fortifi- 
cations, which it had taken the enemy months to 
construct, had been destroyed or captured in as 
many days. The Maid, nothing elated by these 
brilliant successes, gave God the glory. Again 
the aisles of the old Cathedral sounded with the 
midnight hymn of praise ; and they, who had 
joined in the same act of worship but eight days 
before, would muse, in solemn thankfulness, upon 
the strange course of events by which the Maid's 
promises had been all fulfilled, and their own hopes 
surpassed. 



JOAN OF ARC. 37 

Then came the concluding scene of _ . 

° The siege 

this marvellous story. While the church raised. 

bells in Orleans were ringing their peal 
of rejoicing through the night, the English leaders 
were in council, and the resolve was taken to 
raise the siege. To cover the shame of their 
defeat they determined to offer battle first; so 
when the morning came, they drew up in line 
beneath the city walls. The French captains 
would have accepted the challenge, but Joan for- 
bade it. It was Sunday, the 8 th of May. " For 
the love of God, and the honour of his blessed 
day," she cried, " do not begin the battle. It is 
the good pleasure of God to let them depart, if 
they will. Should they attack you, defend your- 
selves with all your might, and you shall be 
masters.'' Then, while the enemy retired in good 
order, the townsmen from the walls watching 
their retreat, and blessing themselves that their 
good city was safe and free, the Maid had an 
altar prepared, and mass was celebrated in the 
open air, and priests were gathered from the 
churches to chant their hymn of victory. 

Half, then, of Joan's mission was accomplished. 
Had her advice been followed, it is probable that 
a fortnight, instead of two months, would have 
sufficed for the other half. The troops, who 

D 3 



38 JOAN OF ARC. 

turned their backs on Orleans were in no fighting 
humour ; and, on the other hand, the newly-kin- 
dled enthusiasm of the French was likely to spread 
further and wider, if no time were given for it to 
cool. The Maid pressed an instant march to 
Rheiins, and "her heroic folly," says Michelet, 
" was the height of wisdom." " Come, gentle 
Dauphin," was her entreaty to the King at Tours, 
a few days afterwards, " come and receive your 
noble crown at Rheims. I am greatly pressed 
that you should go there. Do not doubt that 
you shall be anointed as you ought to be." 
Battle of Pa- But °t ner counsellors prevailed. The 
taj. June 18. g r0 und must be cleared as they went 
along ; the enemy must be driven from the for- 
tresses which lined the banks of the Loire ; all 
must be done prudently where so much was at 
stake. Joan was vexed and grieved, but still 
remained with the army, and did her best for 
France. Some weeks were spent in inarches and 
sieges, during which period some places were 
gained, and nothing lost; but on the 18th of 
June, the English commanders, Talbot and Fas- 
tolf, having united their forces, gave battle near 
the village of Patay, and sustained a decisive 
defeat. " Shall we fight, Joan ? " the Duke of 
Alencon had asked, when he saw the English 



JOAN OF ARC. 39 

drawn tip for action. " Have you some good 
spurs?" was her reply. "Shall we have to fly 
then ? " said the general. " Oh no," answered 
the Maid ; " in the name of God, go at them ; for 
they will be routed and fly as fast as they can ; 
and you will want spurs to follow them." Her 
words came true. The English fought like men 
under a spell. Captains, whose names had been 
a terror to France, fled in terror from the field. 
Talbot was taken prisoner, and two thousand of 
his soldiers were slain. England had seen no 
such day since she first laid claim to France nearly 
a century before. 

The story of the month which followed j^^ t0 
the victory of Patay is admirably told by Rheims. 
Michelet. It seems fitting that a Frenchman should 
describe the burst of enthusiasm which carried 
Charles triumphantly to Rheims, and re-inaugu- 
rated the monarchy within its stately Cathedral. 
We shall, therefore, prefer his rapid sketch and 
glowing words to any tamer version of our own. 

" It was now or never the time to venture on 
the expedition to Rheims. The politicians wanted 
to remain still on the Loire, and make sure of 
Cosne and La Charite ; but this time they talked 
in vain ; no timid counsels could now be listened 
to. Every day brought people flocking in from 

D 4 



40 JOAN OF ARC. 

all the provinces, attracted by the fame of the 
Maid's miracles, and believing only in her, and in 
her purpose forthwith to convey the King to 
Rheims. There was an irresistible outburst of 
the pilgrim and crusading spirit. The indolent 
young King himself at last yielded to the popular 
flood, and suffered himself to be borne along by 
that vast tide that set in towards the north ; 
and off they started all together, willingly or 
perforce, King and courtiers, — the politic and the 
enthusiastic, — the mad men and wise men. They 
were twelve thousand when they began their 
march, but their numbers augmented continually 
as they advanced ; every hour brought them addi- 
tional strength, and those who had no armour 
followed the holy expedition in plain doublets, as 
archers, or sword-and-buckler men, even though 
they were of gentle blood. 

" The army marched from Gien on the 28th of 
June without attempting to enter it, that town 
being in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, 
whom there were reasons for treating with favour. 
Troyes had a mixed garrison of Burgundians and 
English, who ventured to make a sortie on the 
first appearance of the royal army. There seemed 
small chance of storming a town so well guarded, 
and that, too, without artillery. On the other 



JOAN OF ARC. 41 

hand, how was it possible to advance, and leave 
such a place in their rear? The army was already- 
suffering from scarcity. Were it not better to 
return ? The anti-enthusiasts were triumphant. 

" There was one old Armagnac councillor, the 
president Macon, who was of a contrary opinion, 
well knowing that, in such an enterprise, prudence 
was on the side of enthusiasm, and that men must 
not reason in a popular crusade. 'When the 
King undertook this march,' he said, e he did it 
not by reason of the number of his forces or the 
abundance of his money, nor because the achieve- 
ment seemed to him possible. He undertook it 
because Joan told him to advance, and be crowned 
at Rheims, and that he would encounter little 
resistance by the way, such being the good 
pleasure of God.' The Maid then presented her- 
self at the door of the council room, and assured 
them they would be able to enter the town in 
three days. e We would wait six? said the 
Chancellor, 'if we were sure what you say is 
true.' * Six ! you shall enter to-morrow.' 

" She seizes her standard; the whole m 

Troyes 

army follow her to the ditch, and they taken. 
throw into it all they can lay their hands J 
on, — faggots, doors, tables, rafters, — with such 
rapidity that the townspeople thought the ditches 



42 JOAN OP ARC. 

would very soon disappear altogether. The English 
began to be dazzled and bewildered as at Orleans, 
and fancied they saw a cloud of white butterflies 
fluttering round the magic standard. The burghers, 
on their part, were in great dread, recollecting 
that it was in Troyes the treaty had been con- 
cluded which disinherited Charles VII., and 
fearing that an example would be made of their 
town. Already they were taking refuge in the 
churches, and crying out that the town must 
surrender. The fighting men, who desired nothing 
better, parleyed, and obtained leave to depart 
with what they had. 

" What they had was chiefly prisoners, French- 
men. Charles the Seventh's councillors, who had 
drawn up the capitulation, had stipulated nothing 
with respect to those unfortunate persons. The 
Maid alone thought of them. When the English 
marched out with their prisoners in irons, she 
stood at the gates, and cried out, f In God's name 
they shall not carry them off.' She stopped them, 
in fact, and the King paid their ransom. 

" Master of Troyes on the 9th of July, Charles 
made his entry into Rheirns on the 15th, and was 
crowned on the 17th. The Archbishop anointed 
him with oil out of the holy ampulla brought 
from St. Remi.* In conformity with ancient 



JOAN OF AKC. 43 

usage, he was lifted up to his seat by the ecclesi- 
astical peers, and served by the lay peers, both at 
the coronation and the banquet. All the ceremo- 
nies were completed without any omission or 
abridgment, and Charles was now the true King, 
and the only King, according to the notions of the 
times. The English might now crown Henry, if 
they would ; but that new coronation could never, 
in the eyes of the two nations, be more than a 
parody of the other." 

Durino; the ceremonv the Maid stood 

m m Coronation 

near the altar, with her standard in at Rhiems. 

her hand. The gentlemen of the royal J 
suite supplied, as well as they could, the places 
of the great peers of France who ought to have 
been present ; but to Joan every eye was turned. 
" She, in fact, under God," says the old chronicle, 
"was the cause of that same crowning, and had 
gathered that noble assembly ; and if any one had 
seen her fall upon her knees before the King, and 
then clasp his legs and kiss his feet, shedding 
warm tears the while, he must have had his heart 
moved within him. Many, indeed, could not re- 
frain from tears, when she said, ( Gentle King, 

* According to the national legend, a dove had brought it 
from heaven, and it had been used at the coronation of 
Clovis and all his successors. 



44 JOAN OF AEC. 

now is accomplished the pleasure of God, who 
willed that you should come to Rheims to receive 
your crown, thereby showing that you are the 
true King, to whom the kingdom of right 
belongs.' " 

The Maid had accomplished wonders in war, 
and now tried the yet harder task of reconciling 
sworn foes. That day of Jubilee, the memorable 
Sunday which witnessed the anointing of Charles, 
was a fit time for earning the blessing of a peace- 
maker ; so, with characteristic simplicity and 
hopefulness, she addressed a letter to the Duke 
of Burgundy in the following terms : — " Mighty 
and redoubtable Prince, Joan, the Maid, re- 
quires, in the name of the King of heaven, 
my sovereign Lord, that the King of France 
and yourself shall make a good, firm, and last- 
ing peace. Forgive one another cordially and 
entirely, as good Christians ought to do ; and 
if you will go to war, go against the Turk. 
Prince of Burgundy, I beg and pray and demand 
of you, as humbly as I may, not to make war any 
more against the holy kingdom of France, and to 
command an immediate and speedy retreat to all 
your people that are in any places or fortresses of 
the said kingdom. As for the gentleKing of 
France, he is ready to make peace with you, 



JOAN OF ARC. 45 

saving his honour ; so the matter rests with you. 
And I would have you know, from the King of 
heaven, my rightful Lord, for your safety and 
your honour, that you shall not win the battle 
against loyal Frenchmen, and that all those who 
war against the said kingdom of France, war 
against Jesus, King of heaven and all the world, 
and my rightful Lord. I beg and pray you, as on 
my knees, not to give battle, nor war against us, 
you and your people and your subjects ; for take 
my word for it, whatever number of people you 
shall bring against us, they shall not have the 
better of us ; and it will be a great pity that we 
should have fighting, and that the blood of those 
who come against us should be shed. I sent 
letters to you three weeks ago by a herald, that 
you might be present at the King's coronation, 
which is to take place this present Sunday, the 
17th day of July ; but I have had no answer 
from you, and have heard no news of my herald 
since. I commend you to God, praying Him, 
if He pleases, to have you in His keeping, and 
that He will bring about a happy peace." 
Not yet, however, were Joan's la- , , 

J oan s purity 

bours at an end. Her country was and longing 

still far away from " a happy peace ;" 

and to the Maid herself it never came. With 



46 JOAN OP ARC. 

war and all its frightful evils she was to be con- 
versant through all her remaining days of liberty. 
Yet, in the camp, surrounded by rude warriors, 
whom she found it easier to lead to battle than to 
restrain from evil, she kept her pure, gentle na- 
ture unsullied. After all her triumphs and suc- 
cesses, she had nothing of the soldier spirit kindled 
within her. She wore a charmed sword, blessed 
as she thought by St. Catherine, but she seldom 
used it. When it was necessary for self-preser- 
vation, she would use the lance which formed the 
handle of her standard, or a little battle-axe which 
she carried by her side; but her business, she 
thought, was not so much to strike and kill, as to 
show her countrymen the path to victory. Mili- 
tary licence found no favour in her eyes, and at 
times, when food was scanty, she preferred denying 
herself to living on the enemy. Her confessor, 
Pasquerel, who testified that he verily believed 
she was sent of God, as she was " full of all 
the virtues," mentions that she would never touch 
what had been procured by plunder. For the 
dying, too, he said, she had a special care, and 
when life still lingered in some of the enemy, as 
they lay helpless in the field, would send priests 
to confess them. After she had given Charles 
his crown and half his kingdom, instead of loving 



joan or ARC. 47 

the strange, unnatural life to which Providence 
had led her, she was longing to be back again in 
her cottage home ; and, in the midst of the most 
exciting scenes, while keeping company with the 
captains and heroes of France, would talk, like a 
banished child, of Domremy and her aged parents. 
" What a good and pious people," she exclaimed 
one day, shortly after the coronation at Rheims, 
when a crowd of peasants met the King in one of 
his marches, with tears of joy, and greeted him 
with a Te Deum and other hymns of praise, — 
" what a good and pious people are these ; when 
my time comes, I should like well to die and be 
buried here." Where do you suppose that you 
shall die, and when?" asked Dunois, who rode 
by her side. She answered that she knew not, 
that it would be as God should please, and then 
added, " I have done what my Lord commanded 
me, which was to raise the siege of Orleans, and 
to have the gentle King crowned ; and now I 
wish they would send me back to my father and 
mother, to look after their sheep and cattle, and 
do what I was wont to do." * 

* Michelet winds up the chapter from which I have 
quoted so largely (book. x. chap. 3.) with this anecdote, and 
describes the conversation as having been held with the 
King as he first entered Rheims. He refers to Petitot, 



48 JOAN OF AEC. 

The men of France, however, would not spare 
her. Much was to be done before their country 
could be won back from its invaders, and her pre- 
sence with the army seemed to be the pledge of 
certain victory. The risk and the loss were hers, 
and the gain was all theirs ; but the King's en- 
treaties were a law to poor Joan, and her own 
wishes were surrendered to the supposed neces- 
sities of the kingdom. She went with the army 
as before ; she was impetuous and fearless as 
ever; she witnessed the progress of the royal 
cause with the most intense delight ; but there 
was no longer the same confidence as when she 
left Blois to relieve Orleans, or set forward to- 
wards Rhehns with the crown of France filling 
her thoughts and dreams. Her Voices were far 
less express and frequent, it seems, henceforth ; 
she had a less definite course of action ; she was 
less clear and resolved in her own mind, and more 
swayed by the counsels of others. In the last 
stage of her active career, commencing from this 
period, she was like a victim going to the sacrifice, 
and seems to have had many misgivings as to her 
coming fate. 

vol. viii. p. 206. as his authority. There, however, we find 
the conversation reported as having been held at another 
time, and at another place. 



JOAN OF ARC. 49 

In the weeks which followed, " the roads grew 
smooth before the King ; the towns threw open 
their gates, and lowered their drawbridges." The 
English, on the other hand, had almost disappeared 
from the country of which they were lately mas- 
ters. Paris was still theirs, but their diminished 
forces made them tremble even for that. Cardinal 
Beaufort, who then ruled England in the name of 
Henry VI., came over with reinforcements, and 
Bedford, thus strengthened, twice offered battle, 
which Charles declined. At last, while . 

Attempt on 

the English armies were guarding Nor- Paris. Sep- 
mandy, he made a dash at Paris, hoping '" . 

to carry it by assault ; but his friends in the city 
were not strong enough to declare themselves, 
and he met with a repulse which seriously damaged 
his cause. Unwillingly, it seems, the Maid had 
advanced beyond St. Denys. This was sacred in 
her eyes as the place where the kings of France 
were buried, and, whenever she could, she loved 
to linger on holy ground. But when it was re- 
solved to advance, she led the assailing party 
herself, crossing one ditch, and trying with her 
lance the depth of a second which was under the 
very walls. She was near enough to call to the 
soldiers on the ramparts, and cried out, like one 
who was speaking with the authority of heaven, 



50 JOAN OF ARC. 

" Give up this city to the King of France ; " but 
they answered her with foul reproaches and a 
shower of arrows. One of them wounded her in 
the thigh, and the faithful squire, who carried her 
standard, was struck down by her side. Still, 
undaunted by the pain of her wound, and thinking 
that faith and courage might overcome all obsta- 
cles, she bade her countrymen cross the deep fosse 
and scale the high wall, trusting to God's favour 
and protection. For some time she lay stretched 
upon the ground, while her friends were in full 
retreat, and it was not till late at night that the 
entreaties of the Duke of Aleneon prevailed upon 
her to return to St. Denys. 

Fifteen hundred men were wounded in this 
attack ; but, w T hat was far worse, the Maid's name 
was damaged by defeat, and her promises were 
less trusted for the future. The assault was made 
on the 8th of September, which is kept holy by 
the Roman Catholic Church as the day of the 
Virgin Mary's Nativity ; and the citizens of Paris 
were attending high mass when the alarm was 
given. This fact was turned against her. Ene- 
mies and friends alike talked of the profanation 
of the holy season, and said that Joan, by advising 
or sanctioning it, had brought the wrath of heaven 
upon the King and his cause. Many were sure 



JOAN OF ARC. 51 

to turn against her from jealousy and ill-will; 
and others, who followed her most blindly, 
would begin to doubt and waver, as soon as 
some decided check was given to her career of 
conquest. In fact, the retreat from Paris seems 
to have been the first stage in that downward 
course which terminated in her imprisonment 
and death. 

She was ennobled, however, before Joan en _ 
she was disgraced. At Rheims, doubt- nobled. 
less, on his Coronation day, Charles would have 
given any honours that she sought. But such 
prizes as common men covet were nothing to her. 
Badges and titles of distinction, — broad lands or 
heaped-up gold, — would have seemed to her cheap 
as dirt compared with the privilege of having fa- 
voured the right cause, and helped the King to 
his throne. So, for months afterwards, she re- 
mained, simply, " Joan, the Maid," and never 
desired to be known by any other name to her 
own age or to posterity. But in December, to 
lighten his own burden of obligation, the King 
granted a patent of nobility to Joan herself, her 
father, mother and brothers. The document 
recounts the singular goodness of God in sending 
to him such special favours by the hand of Joan, 
and " the praiseworthy, most welcome, and most 

£ 2 



52 JOAN OF ARC. 

seasonable services which she had rendered to his 
kingdom, services which he hopes to see continued 
and enlarged as time shall serve." Wherefore, to 
commemorate what God hath done, and to give 
the world a proof of his royal liberality, he wills 
that she and her near kindred shall rank to all 
intents and purposes as if they had been nobly 
born, and that all the rights of nobility, of what 
kind soever, shall descend after them to their 
posterity, male and female. At Joan's own re- 
quest, another favour was granted which she 
valued at a higher rate, namely, immunity from 
taxation for her native village. With the no- 
bility, who lived in a world far away from her 
own humble sphere, she did not desire to be num- 
bered ; but it pleased her well to be able to offer 
some boon to those among whom she had spent 
her childhood. So in the Collector's books for 
that particular department, for three centuries 
afterwards, there appeared no sum opposite Dom- 
rerny ; but, instead of it, the expressive words, 
" Nothing, for the Maid's sake." 

T , t . During the winter that followed the 
Joan s last o 

days of events which we have been describ- 
liberty. 

ing, the details relating to Joan's 

history are much scantier than we could wish. 

She seems to have spent her time with the army ; 



JOAN OF ARC. 53 

but few enterprises of great importance were un- 
dertaken, and little advantage was gained on 
either side. We know only that she was un- 
spoiled. Her piety and simplicity were still the 
same. She pretended to no knowledge of the 
future beyond what her Yoices gave her by spe- 
cial revelation when her country's need seemed to 
call for it. When women brought her crosses 
and chaplets to touch, she would answer, " Why 
not touch them yourselves, good people ; it will 
do quite as well." For the poor she retained a 
special kindness, and loved to mingle with children 
in the country churches who were preparing for 
their first communion. When she spoke humbly 
of her work, and some replied that nothing like 
it had ever been heard before, or even read in 
books, " My Lord," she answered, " has a book 
which no clerk can read, be he ever so clerk-like 
in his learning." 

With the return of Spring, military 

Her capture, 
operations were renewed with more 

vigour. The town of Compiegne had surrendered 
in the preceding summer to the King, and was 
now attacked by the Duke of Burgundy, who 
hoped to recover it. The Maid gallantly came to 
its rescue, and in her usual fashion turned as- 
sailant at once, making a sortie that very day 
e 3 



54 JOAN OF ARC. 

which took the besiegers by surprise. They 
speedily rallied, however, and became pursuers in 
their turn. Then Joan took the post of danger, 
and tried to protect the rear ; but in so doing she 
was shut out of the town when the gates were 
May 23 closed, and captured. The men of France, 
1430. wno should have been willing, every 
one of them, to buy her life with theirs, left her a 
prey to the enemy. The governor of Compiegne, 
some say, had sold her, and took this method to 
complete his wretched bargain. At any rate, she 
was left, when others for whom she had perilled 
life were safe within the walls ; and being recog- 
nised by her costume, which had become familiar 
by this time to English and Burgundians, she 
was surrounded and made a prisoner. Popular 
tradition still points out the spot where an archer 
of Picardy seized her and dragged her from her 
horse, glad enough to secure such a prize, and as- 
tonished, perhaps, to find that it could be won 
so easily. 

Her capture took place on the 23rd of May, 
1430. Her execution took place on the 1st of 
June in the following year, and during that weary 
interval the Maid had to endure the tortures of 
many martyrdoms. Seldom have there been a rise 
and a fall like hers. From Domremy to Eheims, 



JO AX OF ARC. 55 

— from Hheims to Rouen, — what a wide gulf 
does there seem in each instance! But the details 
of the second stage are as sad as the record of 
the first is romantic and inspiriting. She seemed 
to have enemies every where, and friends no- 
where. Too simple and single-hearted to make 
or court a faction, she had trodden her steep, 
rough path by herself, had stood alone on the 
lofty pinnacle of fame, and now was hurled from 
it without one interposing arm or protesting 
voice. The basest passions were at work to des- 
troy her. Some feared to let her live, after seeing 
what her name and influence had wrought for 
their overthrow. Some hated with a cruel hatred 
the girl before whom their armies had fled in 
terror and disgrace. Some longed to discredit 
the royal cause by representing its champion to 
be an agent of the devil. Some were lusting 
after worldly gains to which they were to be 
helped at the cost of the poor captive Maid. 
She was first in the hands of one 

T IT* 1 O 1 T\ 1 J° ai1 SOld t0 

J ean de Digny, a vassal or the Duke the English. 
of Burgundy, who was glad of an 0Y ' 1430# 
opportunity of doing what would please his 
Lord, having his eye upon an estate to which the 
Duke's influence might help him. Burgundy, 
just then, was anxious to be on good terms with 
e 4 



56 JOAN OF ARC. 

England for the sake of his trade; and gladly 
negotiated for the sale of the Maid to her bitter- 
est enemies, the price being equivalent to a 
prince's ransom, ten thousand livres. But, even 
then, some plea was necessary for getting rid of 
a prisoner of war by violence ; so an ecclesi- 
astic was found, one Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, 
to claim her as being taken within his jurisdiction, 
and suspected of heresy and witchcraft ; he, too, 
having his private ends to serve, for the arch- 
bishopric of Bouen was vacant, and to please 
Cardinal Beaufort was the surest path to promo- 
tion. Thus fear and hatred were leagued together, 
— ambition and covetousness went hand in hand, 
— leading men of three different countries were 
combining their efforts, — and the end which 
they had in view was the destruction of one pure- 
minded, heroic girl, whose only fault it was to 
have loved her King, and served her country, 
with a devotion that put colder loyalty to shame. 
Under such circumstances the end could not be 
doubtful. She was formally surrendered to Cau- 
chon, as the proper person to take judicial cogni- 
zance of offences against religion ; and with him 
was associated the Yicar of the Inquisition in 
France, an obscure Dominican, to give the tri- 
bunal a more dignified and impartial character. 



JOAN OF ARC. 57 

Months were consumed in these negotiations, 
and in the interval the poor Maid was a solitary 
prisoner in the castle of Beaurevoir, at no great 
distance from Compiegne. The latter place was 
still in the hands of the King's friends, but close 
pressed by the English. The rumours of its dis- 
tress reached her in her captivity, and true as 
ever to the great principle of her life, she longed 
for freedom that she might do battle once more 
for France. Her mind was bewildered, it seems, 
between the passionate desire to deliver the be- 
sieged loyalists, and fear of doing any thing 
forbidden to compass an end so precious ; till, at 
last, one day, when she was unguarded at the 
summit of a lofty tower, in a fit, not of despera- 
tion, as she said herself, but of enthusiastic hope, 
expecting to be borne up and preserved by an act 
of divine power, she threw herself headlong from 
the walls. No miracle was wrought to save her ; 
she found herself presently on the ground, not 
free to make straight for Compiegne, but severely 
hurt, so as to be re-captured without difficulty. 
The action passed for an attempt at self-destruc- 
tion ; and while the ladies of Ligny nursed her 
tenderly, her enemies elsewhere gloried in this 
supposed blot on her saintly character. 



58 JOAN OF ARC. 

Joan's trial It was not till the 9th of January 
at Rouen. g J 

Jan. 9. that the proceedings were opened at 

Rouen, and the first appearance of Joan 
before the Court was on the 21st of the follow- 
ing month, just nine months after her military 
career had ended. The indictment charged her 
that, having "discarded all modesty, and being a 
person of wonderful and monstrous depravity," 
she had worn garments unsightly to be seen, and 
suited only to the other sex ; moreover, that she 
" had proceeded to such a pitch of presumption as 
to do, say and publish abroad many things con- 
trary to the Catholic faith ;" — that, in matters of 
this sort, both in the said diocese of Beauvais, 
and in many other parts of the kingdom, she had 
been a grevious offender; — that the Bishop, ac- 
cordingly, as became his pastoral office, had de- 
termined to make inquisition into the charges 
aforesaid; — that John of Luxemburg and the 
Duke of Burgundy, moreover, " piously desiring 
that all things might be done for the increase of 
religion," and the King of England, besides, 
(i animated by the liveliest zeal for the orthodox 
faith," had seconded his wishes, and delivered up 
the said woman into his hands, to be dealt with 
according to the laws and usages of the Church. 
More than forty assessors were mustered, includ- 



JOAN OF AKC. 59 

ing Abbots, Priors., Canons, Doctors of Theology, 
and Licentiates in Civil Law ; and before a host 
like this, the poor Maid had to stand up, without ad- 
vocate or friend, to answer for herself. Let it be 
remembered that everything relating to the trial, 
comes from the judicial documents drawn up by her 
accusers. All, therefore, that goes to prove Joan's 
perfect rectitude of purpose, is certified to us, as 
few things are, or can be, in any historical inquiry. 
When the Secretary sat in court, and noted down 
what she said from day to clay, he little thought 
what a monument he was building up to the 
prisoner's fame. But there it is ; and as we read 
what he has written, we marvel successively 
at her self-possession, her conscientiousness, her 
pertinent replies, and never-failing patience. She 
speaks unreservedly at one time, and cautiously 
at another ; but never, by her speech or silence, 
is there any effort to conciliate her judges. The 
good sense and good faith are always on the 
Maid's side ; the trifling puerilities, and lack of 
wisdom and fairness, are all on theirs. 
The first dispute between them was 

, x» • • Feb 2L 

about her oath. Being required to swear 
upon the holy gospels that she will tell the 
truth concerning all the things respecting which 
she should be interrogated, she takes her ground 



60 JOAN OF ARC. 

as one not free to tell abroad all that has been 
revealed to her in times past. "I don't know 
what you mean to ask me about/' she said. " Per- 
haps you will ask me what I ought not to tell 
you. All that relates to my father and mother I 
will tell you, and what I did when I had taken 
my journey into France. But there are revelations 
which I have received from God, which I never 
told to any living man, except my King, and 
would not tell, even if I were to have my head 
cut off." " But at any rate," it was replied, " you 
may swear to tell the truth about matters which 
concern our faith ;" and to this the Maid was 
sworn, upon her bended knees, with both hands 
upon the Missal. The same scene was renewed 
on the second day with the same result ; yet on 
the third day the attack was renewed on the old 
ground. " You must swear absolutely and without 
conditions of any sort," said the presiding judge, 
" to give true answers to all that we shall ask 
you." (( I have sworn twice already," she said ; 
" that is enough, and you may well dispense with 
more." "You lay a heavy load upon yourselves in 
this matter, and press me more than you ought to 
do." " You might command me to tell what I have 
sworn not to tell ; and then I should have the guilt 
of perjury which you would not wish." It was 



JOAN OF ARC. 61 

evident enough that her very scruples on the 
subject were a better security for truth-telling 
than twenty oaths lightly taken ; but with dogged 
resolution, as if to tease and worry their victim, 
the men plied her with threats and admonitions. 
Joan was as firm as they, and with better reason. 
" I am ready to swear to tell the truth about all I 
know relating to this inquiry," she said again ; 
and so the matter concluded for that time. 

When this point was settled to the satisfaction 
of the court, they questioned her about her birth, 
her religious teachers, her childhood and her early 
youth. All was told with the greatest frankness 
and simplicity; — her home pursuits, — her visit 
to her uncle and journeys to Vancouleurs, — her 
repulse by Baudricourt, — her importunity and 
subsequent success, — her journey to Chinon, and 
meeting with the Kins;. fS I saw St. Michael 
first," she said, " when I was thirteen, and he 
had many angels with him. I saw St. Margaret 
and St. Catherine afterwards. I knew them be- 
cause they told me who they were. I did all at 
their bidding, and when I knew the King at 
Chinon, it was because they prompted me."* Such 
had been her unvarying testimony since she first 

* See NOTE (F). 



62 JOAN OF ARC. 

left her native village and declared that she had a 
work to do for France ; and word for word it was 
repeated once again before captious and hostile 
judges. 

Two questions naturally arose out of 

Joan, a u . 

heretic, or her story: — First, did she see the saints, 
a Wltch * or not p an( j secondly, if she did not really 
see them, did she believe her own story, or try 
to pass a lie upon the world for truth ? Was she a 
cheat who aimed at notoriety, and cared not how 
it was won ? or a dreamer of dreams whose fancies 
had shaped themselves into forms, which to a per- 
son of her impassioned temperament had all the 
appearance of reality ? This last conclusion, it 
seems quite impossible for any candid mind to 
resist. All the evidence tends that way, and 
there is no single circumstance which gives the 
smallest plausibility to the other supposition. A 
third question, however, perplexed the minds of 
the men who tried her. " Was she a heretic or a 
witch?" In either character she might be burnt; 
but they thought it important to settle which 
badge of infamy should be fastened upon her 
before they gave sentence in the Church's name. 
Still, upon their theory, as it seems to us, nine 
tenths of their questions might have been spared; 
and a much shorter process would have been more 



JOAN OF ARC. 63 

humane to Joan, and less discreditable to them- 
selves. It did not much signify, surely, how 
Joan knew St. Catherine from St. Margaret, — 
whether they were of the same age, and were 
dressed alike, — whether she saw any thing but 
their faces, — whether they had rings in their ears, 
and long flowing hair under their crowns, — whe- 
ther they had wings or arms, — whether they both 
spoke together or in turns ; yet such was the style 
of the examination often through half a day, 
while the poor Maid listened, and tried to recal 
the visions of the past, and answered some ques- 
tions affirmatively, and some with hesitation, as 
one fearful to speak a syllable beyond the truth. 
" I can't remember now ;" — "I knew once, but 
it is forgotten ;" — "I told them at Poitiers 
about this ; I remembered then ; you can send 
there and learn what I said ;" — " Pray, spare 
me, and pass on to something else ;" — were 
some of her simple, touching replies at times 
like these. 

All that had been reported by friends to her 
honour, or invented by enemies to bring scandal 
on her name, was turned against her with ingeni- 
ous, persevering malignity. " Did you know/' 
asked her judges, " that people on your side had 
masses celebrated, and prayers offered up, to do 



64 JOAN OF ARC. 

you honour ?" " If they had any religious ser- 
vice on my account," was her answer, " I never 
told them ; and if they prayed for me, surely 
they did nothing wrong." " But did they not 
believe firmly that your mission was from God, 
and did they believe well in thinking so ?" " I do 
not know what they believed," said Joan ; " their 
own hearts can tell that best ; but if they thought 
I was sent of God, they were not mistaken." 
es But did you not know what was in the hearts 
of your people when they kissed your feet and 
hands and garments?" " Many, doubtless, were 
pleased to see me ; poor people especially would 
come about me to embrace me, because I never 
did them wrong, but took pleasure rather in help- 
ing them when I could." 

Her Yoices, it seems, had not left her : they 
Feb. 24. were with her in prison. She says, on 
one occasion, that she had heard them the day 
before, — that they woke her in the morning, — that 
some things were said which she did not under- 
stand, but, when she was wide awake, they told 
her to answer boldly, — that she sat upon her bed, 
and with clasped hands begged for their help and 
guidance, and they gave for answer that God 
would help her. Her courage seems to have 
grown, and her spirit to have kindled, as she 



JOAN OF ARC. 65 

recalled the scene ; for after describing it particu- 
larly, she said to the Bishop, " You call yourself 
my judge; take care, then, what you do; fori 
am truly sent from God, and you are running 
into danger ;" — " I believe firmly, as firmly as I 
believe that God redeemed us from the pains ot 
hell, that the Voice came from God." Then came 
the nice distinctions and refinements of men who 
had their own theories about angels and spirits, 
and thought the poor Maid must understand them 
too. " Was that Voice you speak of," they said, 
" a single angel, or did it come immediately from 
God, or was it the voice of some saint, male or 
female ?" te The voice came from God," she an- 
swered ; " I believe I don't tell you quite plainly 
what I know; for I am more afraid of doing 
wrong by saying what may displease the Voices 
than I am of answering you." 

The marvel is, that human patience Joan > s va _ 

could hold out against the teazing of the tieuce and 
. . . . cleverness. 

doctors, with their infinitely small ques- 
tions a dozen times repeated. Eight times in as 
many days, sometimes twice in the same day, during 
the month of March, she was put upon this sort 
of rack ; and yet, strange to say, she did not turn 
on the men who baited her, and say, " I am sick 
and weary of these childish follies ; you know all 



66 JOAN OP ARC. 

about me that you need to know ; you can kill 
me, if you like, for I am but a helpless woman ; 
but, God helpiog me, I will not speak another 
word." She went on answering, and her answers 
were marvellous for their discretion at one time, 
and for their promptness at another. When the 
inquiries were most irrelevant, she either brought 
back her judges to the point from which they had 
wandered, reminding them that her oath was not 
binding beyond certain limits, and that to state- 
ments wholly unconnected with the matter in hand 
she would not commit herself ; or else she met 
the grave old gentlemen with some quick-witted 
retort, without any thing of rudeness or passion, 
which must have flashed like lightning, almost, on 
their bewildered intellects. " Was St. Michael 
naked, when you saw him ? " they said one day ; 
" Do you think the Lord had not enough to find 
him clothes ? " answered the Maid. " Did St. 
Margaret talk English ?" inquired the wiseacres ; 
" Why, she was not on the English side," Joan 
reminded them; "how should she talk their 
tongue ?" " Do St. Margaret and St.. Catherine 
hate the English ?" was another query ; " They 
love what our Lord loves," said the pure-hearted 
girl, " and hate what He hates." " Does God 
hate the English, think you ?"' " How He 



JOAN OF ARC. 67 

esteems their souls I cannot tell," Joan replied, 
with the charity which never failed her; but 
added, with her true French heart, in the face of 
men who were all on the English side, " I know 
well they shall all be driven out of this land, ex- 
cept those who perish in it." 

The doubtful points of her life were recurred 
to again and again, and were strangely coupled, 
sometimes, with supposed irregularities in military 
transactions, as if poor Joan, besides being the 
router of armies, had been presiding judge on 
courts-martial, and supreme arbitress in every 
disputed question of campaigning morality. 
" Were you in mortal sin, when you let a prisoner 
of war be put to death ; — and again, when you 
rode on that horse which belonged to the Bishop 
of Senlis ; — - and again, when you wore man's 
clothes ; — and again, when you attacked Paris on 
the festival-day ; — and again, when you threw 
yourself from the tower of Beaurevoir ?" For the 
trifling and the serious, in interrogatories of this 
sort, the Maid was alike prepared. " The prisoner 
was a bad. man, and was judged for past crimes 
by the proper officers." " The Bishop got his horse 
back again ; besides it was but a poor steed for 
military purposes." Then, " for her man's dress, 
she had done what she did at God's bidding and 

F 2 



68 JOAN OF ARC. 

in His service ; and when He pleased, her male 
attire should be put off again." " If she did wrong 
in assaulting Paris, that was the Church's con- 
cern, and she would confess gladly to a priest." 
"At Beaurevoir, when she perilled her life by leap- 
ing from the tower, she did not well, she thinks ; 
on the contrary, it was ill done ; but it was in 
charity to the poor suffering townsmen the ven- 
ture was made, and on that point she made sure 
that she had a pardon from God." 

More than once the trap was so laid as to render 
it difficult for her to make her ground good with- 
out seeming to exalt herself unduly. As far as 
her Voices went, she claimed to have favours and 
privileges of no common kind. Did she, then, 
think herself beyond the reach of danger? Her 
heavenly visitants encouraged her, she said, to 
martyrdom by the hope of Paradise. Was it out 
of the question, then, that she should commit 
mortal sin ? " I know nothing about it ; I leave 
that to the Lord," was her reply ; and again, 
when asked whether she knew herself to be in a 
state of grace, she gave a reply frank and modest 
like herself: " If I am not, I pray God to bring 
me to it ; and if I am, may He keep me in it. I 
should be the most wretched creature on earth if 
I thought I were not in God's favour. Besides, 



J0A2\ T OF ARC. 69 

if I were in a state of sin, the Voice, I think, 
would never come to me ; and I should be glad 
enough to have all the world understand it as well 
as I do." 

When the ingenuity of the judges Eefogeg ^ 
was exhausted, and it was difficult to condemn 
find new questions wherewith to perplex 
or teaze her, the case against poor Joan seemed 
but a weak one, and the Court lacked courage to 
condemn her. Again and again, the poor Maid 
was pressed to condemn herself, or at any rate to 
leave the whole matter of her pretensions and 
doings to be decided on by the Church. Sub- 
missive and docile in other things, upon one point 
she was immoveable. Her mission must not be 
questioned. She had guides who had sent her on 
her way, higher than any earthly teacher. Doc- 
tor, Bishop, Pope were no court of appeal, when 
the saints in heaven had spoken. So she stood 
out bravely, and answered nobly, " I love the 
Church and would support it with all my power, 
as a Christian ought to do ; and reason there is 
none why I should be kept, as I am, from going 
to church and hearing mass. As to the good 
works I have done, I must refer myself to the 
judgment of the King of Heaven who sent me." 
" But what of the Church ?" said the churchmen ; 
f 3 



70 JOAN OP ARC. 

" will you not submit your words and deeds to 
her decision?" " Our Lord and the Church are 
one," she said in her simplicity. But when she 
was told that she must distinguish between the 
glorifie d Church in heaven, and the militant Church, 
consisting of Pope and Cardinals, and Bishops and 
Clergy, and faithful men to boot, she went back 
to her old point : her convictions were more to her 
than all the nice distinctions of learned men. " I 
came," she said, " to the King of France on the 
part of God, the blessed Virgin, the Saints in 
Paradise, and all the victorious Church on high ; 
to that Church I submit all that I have done, and 
all that I shall do ; and as to the Church militant, 
I will give you no other answer." 

On Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when the 
churches of Rouen were thronged with worship- 
pers, she was in her prison fastened to a post by 
a heavy chain. No mass for her, and no com- 
munion, though her longings for them were of 
the intensest kind. On the intervening Satur- 
day, being the last day of March, Joan 
was called upon for her final answer to 
a very long indictment, comprised in seventy ar- 
ticles, and filling one hundred and twenty printed 
pages Some she had already admitted ; some 
she had denied; upon some she had madejudi- 



JOAN OF AKC. 71 

cious and appropriate comments ; some she had 
asked time to consider, that her reply might be 
given with more of calmness and deliberation. 
The question about referring herself to the judg- 
ment of the Church was one of these ; and her 
well weighed decision is worth quoting from the 
original document. " As to that which is de- 
manded of me, I do refer myself to the judgment 
of God's Church on earth, provided it shall not 
require of me an impossibility. And that which 
I have now in my thoughts I call an impossibility ; 
namely, that I should retract what I have said 
upon the trial as to my visions and revelations, or 
what I have done by the command of God. I 
will not retract it for any body. And for that 
which God sent me to do, or shall command 
henceforth, I will not fail to do it for any man 
living." Here issue was joined, then ; she must 
be dealt with as wicked laws or unscrupulous 
judges might determine ; but to her own degra- 
dation the Maid would never be consenting. 

Meanwhile, the Duke of Bedford 
grew impatient, and pressed for a con- presses for a 
demnation which should dishonour the conviction - 
King of France as having been helped by a witch. 
Joan had been seriously ill during Passion Week, 
and it was feared that the English might lose 
p 4 



72 JOAN OF ARC. 

their prey. Cauchon, the Duke's willing instru- 
ment, was told that it was time this business was 
settled ; affairs of state must not be kept in sus- 
pense while they were letting a worthless girl, 
who had allied herself to the devil, carry on this 
idle war of words from week to week ; he looked 
to have his pleasure done, and that speedily. The 
Bishop stirred himself, and appealed to the lawyers 
first, whom he found refractory, then to the chap- 
ter of Rouen, who did not love him well enough 
to decide promptly as he wished. At last, the 
university of Paris was tried ; and while an an- 
swer was expected from that quarter, the judges 
did their utmost to bring Joan to confession. On 
the 18th of April, when she was brought very 
low by illness, the Bishop, and half a dozen doc- 
tors with him, went to her prison, according to 
their own story, that they might " lovingly ex- 
hort, and gently admonish her." To her entreaty 
that, in her extremity, if her sickness went on to 
death, she might have the last rites of the Church, 
and be laid in consecrated ground, they answered 
that these things were for good Catholics, and she 
must prove herself one by submission. After- 
wards they tried her with other weapons. 
The rack was carried into her prison ; 
and men stood by ready to put her to the torture ; 



JOAN OF ARC. 73 

and, thus confronted, the poor Maid was exhorted 

to confess the truth. But the spirit was still 

strong even in that enfeebled frame. They might 

tear her limb from limb, she said ; but she could 

not vary her story. The angel Gabriel was with 

her the week before. She was well assured that 

God had ruled her in all that she had done, and 

the devil had no power in her. The decision of 

that day is worth giving in the Court's own words. 

" When we saw the obstinacy of her spirit, and 

the fashion of her answers, we, fearing that the 

torture would do her little good, determined to 

delay the infliction of the same until we had taken 

further counsel on the subject." 

The longest things must have an 

, , . . , ,. , Judgment 

end, and so even this weary trial did not against 

last for ever. The reply of the univer- j^' 19 

sity came at length, and was read out on 

the 19th of May. It was as decisive in its tone, 

and as peremptory in its conclusions, as Cauchon 

himself could wish. The judges had done all 

things well ; and for poor Joan, they decreed that 

she was either a wilful, wicked liar, or in alliance 

with Belial, Satan, and Behemoth; that her 

story reflected very much on the dignity of angels ; 

that some of the articles proved her to be much 

given to superstition, a dealer in enchantments, a 



74 JOAN OF ARC. 

most unscrupulous story-teller, and a vain boaster; 
that she was a proved blasphemer and despiser 
of the holy sacraments, unsound in the faith, and 
a follower of heathen customs, if not an actual 
idolater; that she was a crafty and cruel trait- 
ress, thirsting for human blood ; moreover, a most 
undutiful and unruly daughter, tampering with 
the divine command which prescribed piety at 
home ; and, lastly, to crown the whole, a schis- 
matic and apostate, who had very bad notions 
about the unity and authority of the Church. 

Had they burnt her the next day, the judges 
would have spared something of their own dignity, 
and. would have been pronounced by posterity not 
a whit more cruel and unjust. Or if they had 
kept her in prison to receive monthly lectures on 
orthodoxy from the doctors, threatening her with 
death if she did not recant her errors, they might 
have been supposed to wish well to her soul, 
though they were wretched, narrow-minded bigots 
who could not read a character like Joan's. But 
they took pains to heap infamy on themselves. 
They parleyed with her, — pretended to pardon her 
upon conditions, — tried her again on the plea that 
she had broken faith, — and then burnt her, ap- 
parently, without any formal sentence, as one who 
had troubled them too long, and must be put out of 



JOAN OF ABC. 75 

the way for peace' sake. History lives, however, 
thank God, though men die ; and all their mean 
paltry arts, now that the whole tale is known, 
recoil upon themselves. One only wonders why 
they tormented her so long if they meant to play 
her so foul at last ; but, certainly, if they had 
wished to give dramatic interest to her story, 
they could scarcely have contrived it better. 
We see hard-hearted men of power arrayed 
against one gentle, friendless maiden, — trickery 
and fraud met by guileless innocence, — traitors to 
their country conspiring to destroy the most loyal 
subject in France, — judges shrinking from the 
last act of cruelty lest the world should cry shame 
upon them, while the prisoner bravely stood to 
all she had said and done, declaring, with simple, 
straightforward honesty, that duty called her 
to it. 

Three scenes taken from the last ten Last d 
days of the Maid's life will bring our nar- of Joan - 

* . & May 23. 

rative to a conclusion. On the 23d 
of May, behind the beautiful church of St. Ouen, 
Cardinal Beaufort, with two judges and thirty- 
three assessors, took their seats on a raised plat- 
form, while Joan stood on another, amid ushers 
and torturers. The executioner was in a cart be- 
neath, and a doctor, noted for his eloquence, stood 



76 JOAN OF ARC. 

by her side. The proceedings began with a ser- 
mon, and the text was this, — " The branch cannot 
bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine." 
The practical application was very obvious, that 
the Maid must submit herself to the Church, that 
being the vine, according to the doctor's exposi- 
tion. She referred herself to God and the Pope, 
in the first instance ; but on being told the Pope 
was a long way off, and that Bishops were his 
proper representatives, she was silent for a while, 
and gave no answer to a monition thrice repeated. 
Then, for a few moments, that noble spirit bowed 
beneath the storm. While Cauchon was in the 
act of reading out the sentence of death, she said, 
as her enemies report, that she would be sub- 
missive to the Church in all things, and would not 
uphold her visions any longer if holy men pro- 
nounced them a delusion and a cheat. A bit of 
parchment was produced containing a few lines, 
quite different from the recantation published in 
her name, and when the Maid had drawn a circle 
and a cross upon it, she was pardoned on two 
conditions, first, that she should wear proper 
clothes, like a decent woman, and, secondly, that 
she should pass the rest of her days in prison, 
" eating the bread of tears and the water of afflic- 
tion," as one mercifully spared by the Church. 



JOAN OF ARC, 77 

That day week, Joan was again before her 
judges, dressed like a man. The enquiry ? 
or rather dispute, which followed, seems 
almost childish amid such tragic scenes ; but there 
it is, and a singular conclusion we must pronounce 
it to this most extraordinary trial. She chose 
to wear man's clothes, she said ; they suited her 
best, while she was living among men ; she did 
not understand that she was pledged never to 
resume them. Faith had not been kept with her, 
for she hoped to have the communion when she 
recanted in the previous week ; besides, her Voices 
had reproved her for her sin in denying the truth 
to save her life. " God had sent her," she now 
repeated ; " and for her recantation, she could but 
say that it was forced from her by fear. Now, 
she would dress like a woman, if her judges 
pleased ; but rather than lie in prison any longer, 
she would do penance once for all, and die." The 
fact seems to be that she was entrapped into re- 
suming her male attire. She could never have 
got her armour again, if it had not been purposely 
put in her way ; nay, worse, a witness swore on 
the second trial, when the secrets of the prison- 
house came to light, and the foul deeds of her ac- 
cusers could be safely reported, that she was left 
before her guards with the choice of her old dress 



78 JOAN OV ARC. 

or none, so that her modesty might be outraged 
or her promise broken. 

All, then, was ready for the sacrifice, the judges, 
certainly, no less eager than the victim. The 
next day but one was appointed for the execu- 
tion ; a few hours' warning was all that was given 
to the Maid, and we do not like her the less for 
shrinking at last from the flames, after braving 
death a hundred times in the battle-field. When 
her last hope expired, she burst into tears, and said 
she would rather lose her head seven times over 
than be burnt. Alluding to the cruel insults she 
had received in prison, she said, " If I had been 
in the Church's keeping, and guarded by her 
officers, things would not have come to this sad 
end. I appeal to God, the great Judge, for they 
have injured me most foully." Eight hundred 
Englishmen, armed with swords and 
June 1. l anceS5 conducted her to the fishmarket 
of Rouen. She wept and bewailed her fate, but 
uttered no word that reflected on her King, or 
threw a doubt upon her mission. The Bishop of 
Beauvais began to preach to her, — exhorted her 
to penitence, — bidding her care for her soul, 
though the poor body was condemned ; but she 
needed not man's exhortations at a time like that, 
for her spirit was calm again, and her death was 



JOAN OF ARC. 79 

of a piece with her life. She poured forth many 
supplications to the blessed Trinity, invoked the 
Virgin and all the saints, called upon friends and 
enemies to pray for her, and gave hearty forgive- 
ness to all who had done her wrong. For some- 
thing like half an hour, says an eyewitness, this 
scene continued, and, while it lasted, hard hearts 
were melted into pity. Cardinal Beaufort wept ; 
the Bishop of Beauvais wept ; hundreds, to whom 
her name had been odious hitherto, — citizens of 
Rouen by the thousand, who were all English in 
heart, — went away, and said that her end was 
saintly. 

The pile on which she was to suffer 

.... Her death, 
was raised to an immense height, that 

she might be a spectacle to the vast assembled 
multitude, — possibly, too, that her dying testi- 
mony might not reach any friendly ear. It was 
heard, however, and is recorded thus: " My Voices 
were of God ; my Voices did not deceive me." A 
good monk stood near her, till, on Joan's own 
warning, he retired from the advancing flames, 
and then held up the cross before her eyes, which 
he had fetched for her from the neighbouring 
church. "I heard her in the flames," he said 
nearly twenty years afterwards, " calling on the 
saints to help her. And when she rendered up 



80 JOAN OF ARC. 

her spirit, she bowed her head, and pronounced 
the name of Jesus, in token that she had fervent 
faith in God, as we read of Saint Ignatius, and 
many of the holy martyrs." The same witness 
reported that, before the day was over, the exe- 
cutioner came to him " overwhelmed with sorrow 
and contrition," and saying that he feared that his 
sin would never be forgiven. An Englishman, 
who had vowed to throw a faggot on the burning- 
pile, kept to his purpose ; but his hatred was pre- 
sently turned to terror ; for the demeanour of the 
Maid so wrought upon his excited mind that he 
felt like one condemned and forsaken, declaring to 
his friends that, as Joan sank into death, he saw 
a dove soar upwards from her ashes. An honest 
citizen of Rouen declared, in later days, when 
men could speak what they thought, that he heard 
all about the Maid's execution, but was not pre 
sent at it ; for himself, on account of the rumours 
which had reached him of her piety, he could not 
bear the sight. " The whole people," he said, 
" whispered among themselves that foul wrong 
was done her. I met one returning from the 
place of punishment, a secretary of the King of 
England ; and he spoke with pain and bitter sor- 
row of all that had been done that day, exclaim- 
ing, ' We are all lost ; for we have burnt a 



JOAN OF ARC. 81 

Thus lived, and thus died, the Maid of Orleans. 
Frenchmen shall not admire her virtues more 
heartily than we, nor declare more freely that her 
murder is a part of our inheritance of shame. 
But if their historians shall remind us, as Michelet 
has done % in a tone of insolent triumph, that 
we English prompted the crime for our own 
selfish and malignant purposes, we will reply 
that Cauchon, the basest of Joan's enemies, was 
no Englishman, — that the wretch who sold 
her belongs not to us, — that Charles VII., who 
owed more to the Maid than king ever owed to 
subject, made no attempt at her rescue, — that 
the citizens of Rouen, who stood still and saw her 
burnt, were not our ancestors, but the ancestors 
of the very men who cry shame upon us, — and 
when we have told them all this, w T e may fairly 
call upon our revilers to repent of their share in 
the deed as heartily as we repent of ours. 

Modern Frenchmen, as might be ^he English 
expected, have done justice to their ex P elled - 
heroine. " That glorious creature," said one 
of the wisest of them lately (Guizot), at a ban- 
quet in Rouen, " without a parallel in the history 
of the world, — with a nature half angelic, half 
heroic, — for ever destroyed what the successors 

* See I^OTE (G). 
G 



82 JOAN OF ARC. 

of William of Normandy laboured to effect in 
France ; " and we shall understand only a part of 
Joan's greatness unless we add that the work 
which she began, the deliverance of France, 
was carried on and completed by other hands. 
The nation was roused, and never sank back again 
into despondency, till it had won its own soil, and 
recovered its ancient fame. For twenty years 
the tide of conquest hardly ever turned, while 
town after town, and province after province, were 
wrested from the English. 

A few months after Joan's death, Bedford, 
hoping to strengthen his party in Paris, brought 

Dec 16. over our Henry VI., then a boy of ten 
1431, years, and had him crowned there ; 
but the townsmen looked on silently and coldly, 
and could not help connecting the utter poverty 
and wretchedness of their fair city with the 
ruinous wars entailed on them by the invaders. 
Long possession had made the English insolent 
and imperious, and no pains were taken, even at 
that critical time, to enlist the popular feeling on 
their side. They had acted the part of hard, ex- 
acting masters throughout ; and now the cere- 
mony of inaugurating the sovereign was performed 
in the English mode, Cardinal Beaufort placing 
the crown on the child's head with his own hands. 



JOAN OF AEC. 83 

The triumphing, however, was short ; for in less 
than five years, when the English garrison was 
reduced to fifteen hundred men, the Constable 

Bichemont appeared before the walls 

/> -o • • i i i r i A - D - 1436 - 

oi Fans with a much larger force ; the 

citizens gladly opened their gates ; and the King 

of France had his own again. 

Yet more important, however, to the national 
cause, was the peace of Arras, concluded in the 
year 1435 between Charles and the Duke of 
Burgundy. Philip the Good, as he was called, 
the prime mischief-maker through years of dis- 
aster and defeat, grew weary of the English 
alliance ; and, after exacting hard terms from the 
King, and securing some important advantages for 
himself, consented to become the ally of France, 
though the name of vassal, for his own life and 
the King's, was to be renounced. 

The people received the news of this reconcilia- 
tion with transports of joy. The man who, to 
avenge his private quarrel, had tried to degrade 
France to the level of an English province, had 
repented of his errors, and would do his utmost 
to repair them. The treaty of Troyes was can- 
celled at last, and the badges of a long and dis- 
graceful servitude were disappearing one by one. 
Even the trophies of Agincourt were given back ; 

G 2 



84 JOAN OF ARC. 

for the Duke of Orleans, the King's cousin, one 
of the prisoners of that terrible day, 
was released from his twenty-five 
years' captivity, and, as a pledge of better times, 
married a nieCe of the Duke of Burgundy, the 
son of his father's murderer. The King, mean- 
while, displayed, occasionally and by fits, a vigour 
and activity of mind which astonished both friends 
and foes; the monarchy was strengthened by 
many internal improvements; and the power of 
the great lords and vassal-princes was reduced 
within more reasonable limits. 

The prostrate nation, in fact, gathered up its 

strength, and became greater, more united, and 

more powerful, than ever. Even Nor- 

A. D. 1449. 

mandy was conquered, which England 
had so long regarded as her own, like Kent and 
Middlesex; the rich province of Guienne, the 
Garden of France, which Eleanor had brought as 
her marriage portion to our Henry II. three 
centuries before, was another prize, — Bourdeaux, 

the capital town, in which the Black 

A.D. 1451. «-.,,;. 

Jrrince bad been more at home than 
in London, being the last place that held out in 
the South of France ; and in twenty years from 
the death of Joan of Arc the English possessions 
in France were reduced to the single town of 



JOAN OF ARC. 85 

Calais. Such were the fruits of Agincourt ; such 
the results to England of a war which had spread 
desolation through the towns and provinces of 
France, while the young grew old, and a fresh 
generation were reared to middle life. 

" But what good came of it at last ?/' 

Quoth little Peterkin. 
" Why, that I cannot tell," said he, 
" But 'twas a famous victory."* 



This narrative has been compiled from the follow- 
ing works : — 

Michelet's History of France, translated by 
Kelly, Vol. II. 

BARANTE's HlSTOIRE DES DUCS DE BOURGOGNE, 

Vols. V. and VI. 

Petitot's Collection Complete des Memoires 

RELATIFS A L'HlSTOIRE DE FRANCE, Vol. VIII. 

Quicherat's Proces de Jeanne d'Arc, three oc- 
tavo volumes in Latin, containing a full Report of the 
Trial, and of the subsequent Process of Revision in 
1456. 

Lord Mahon's interesting article in the 138th Num- 
ber of the Quarterly Review, since republished in his 
" Historical Essays." 

* Southey's " Battle of Blenheim," which should be duly 
read and learnt in every royal nursery where English is 
understood, and translated into other tongues for the benefit 
of young Princes. 

*g 3 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NOTE (A). Page 7. 

Jeanne Djrc, modern historians tell us, is her 
real name, and that it was so written by a de- 
scendant of her brother who wrote her history. 
We have known her too long by the other to 
make it worth while to change it. An old history 
of the Siege of Orleans, quoted by Southey, has 
another reading, and calls her father Jacques Tart 
By the French writers, she is almost always called, 
emphatically, " The Maid." 

NOTE (B). Page 8. 

The evidence of this witness, Joan's companion 
and playmate in early days, is worth quoting at 
length. " She said that she had known Joan, 
who was called the Maid, from her youth, and 
that she was born at Domremy, her parents being 
James and Isabella d' Arc, honest labouring people 
and good Catholics. She knows this, because she 
often stayed in the house of Joan's father as a 
friend, and slept with her when there. She does 
not remember about her godfathers and god- 
mothers, except from hearsay, because Joan was 
three or four years older than herself. Joan was 
a good girl, sincere and affectionate, and went 
willingly and frequently to church and sacred 
places. She was often abashed because people 



NOTES. 8 / 

said to her that slie was too pious, and went too 
much to church ; for she used often to go to con- 
fession, and witness has heard the priest say so. 
Joan's employments were like those of other 
girls ; she did household work, and span, and 
sometimes kept her father's cattle. I have seen 
her keeping them myself. Witness said, more- 
over, that the tree, which was enquired about, 
had been called the ( Ladies' Tree ' for a long 
time, and it was an old saying that the Fairies 
used to come to it ; but she never heard that any 
one had seen them. The boys and girls used to 
go to the tree, and carried bread with them there ; 
and witness herself had been at the tree some- 
times along with Joan, who was her playmate, 
and met parties of young people there ; and then 
they used to take their meal, and walk about and 
play. She knew nothing about Joan's going 
away, and shed many tears when she heard about 
it ; for she loved her dearly for her goodness, and 
for old acquaintance sake." — Proces, torn. ii. 417 
—419. 

It would be a pity not to have this picture of 
Joan's girlhood. Those sports about the Fairies' 
Tree should be remembered along with the tri- 
umph of Orleans, and the tragedy of Rouen. It 
is curious to see how this old tree figures in the 
enquiries about Joan. There were suspicions, 
probably, that she had had dealings with the 
Fairies, and had got no good from them. The 
Maid herself at the first trial, and her surviving 
playmates and companions at the second, had to 
tell all they knew about Varbre des dames; and 
little was there to tell after all; for the cousin 

G 4 



88 JOAN OF ARC. 

reports that she had never " heard of any one who 
saw a Fairy there ; " and a dozen witnesses concur 
in telling the judges that they knew the spot only 
as a place of sports and pic nics. 

NOTE (C). Page 9. 

Southey was very young when he wrote his 
" Joan of Arc," he tells us, having begun it the day 
after he was nineteen ; and but little of his 
poetical reputation rests upon that youthful per- 
formance. His faith at that time was very un- 
settled, and he meant, doubtless, to exalt Joan 
when he represented her as worshipping out of 
doors, and despising church ceremonies. Through 
nearly fifty lines of blank verse, she is made to 
argue with a priest in the following style : — 

" The forms of worship in mine earlier years 
Waked my young mind to artificial awe, 
And made me fear my God. AY arm with the glow 
Of health and exercise, whene'er I passed 
The threshold of the house of prayer, I felt 
A cold damp chill me. .... 

But in riper years, 
When as my soul grew strong in solitude, 

• . I fled 

The house of prayer, and made the lonely grove 
My temple, at the foot of some old oak 
Watching the little tribes that had their world 
Within its mossy bark," &c 

Bookiii. 411—456. 

Anything more unlike the real Joan it is im- 
possible to conceive. She prayed in the fields, 
not because she despised sacred places, — for the 
church was to her like a second home, — but be- 
cause the ardour of her devotion broke through 
the common bounds of time and place. 



NOTES. 89 

The poets have not been happy in their treat- 
ment of this subject. In the first part of Henry 
the Sixth, Joan figures as a blustering virago, 
challenging the Dauphin to single combat at her 
first interview. With her dying breath, too, she 
proclaims her own shame, and utters frantic curses 
against her enemies. But Shakspeare wrote 
with the prejudices of an Englishman, and pro- 
bably with very imperfect information. Schiller 
had no such excuses ; yet in his " Maid of Or- 
leans," he has substituted wretched romance for 
genuine and most pathetic history. There is a 
certain Welshman, in his tale, whom Joan con- 
quers in battle ; and then, having looked too 
fondly on his handsome face, she bitterly re- 
proaches herself as being guilty and forsworn, 
because in thought, for a single moment, she had 
broken her vow of maiden purity. Afterwards, 
she submits in silence to the charge of witchcraft 
brought against her by her own father, is banished 
by Charles, taken prisoner by the English, breaks 
her chains by main strength, and receives her 
death wound in leading the French troops to 
victory. One does not know what is gained by 
the dramatist in taking some historical character 
for his subject, if the history is deliberately falsi- 
fied all through. 



NOTE (D). Page 15. 

Very different is the part assigned to Baudri- 
court in some popular works. The following is 
Ty tier's account of the " heroic Maid," in his 
Universal History : — " Charles, availing himself 



90 JOAN OF ARC. 

of the superstition of the age, projected an extra- 
ordinary scheme for the recovery of his kingdom 
by feigning an interposition from Heaven in his 
favour. A gentleman of the name of Baudricourt 
saw a young servant maid at an inn in Lorraine, 
whom he immediately conceived to be a fit person 
for playing a very extraordinary part. She was 
taught her cue, and made to counterfeit a divine 
inspiration. They carried her before the King, 
when the answers that were put in her mouth, 
and the demeanour which she assumed, convinced 
every body that she was inspired." What a sa- 
gacious man he was who detected in a servant 
maid the capacity of playing so " very extra- 
ordinary " a part as that of the Maid of Orleans ! 
Joan " taught her cue ! " Why, she would never 
be taught any thing after her mission began. 
Men had to obey and follow her, but none could 
manage her. Bedford is condemned by the same 
author as being guilty of " meanness and cruelty," 
when he ought to have "respected her intrepidity." 
But, according to the religious notions of the age, 
if she really " counterfeited a divine inspiration," 
she deserved burning, and the Duke was no 
spiteful enemy, but one who dealt out a just 
punishment for her crimes. 



NOTE (E). Page 30. 

The following passage, quoted by Lord Mahon 
from Barante, gives a lively description of the 
scene : — 

" The day had been a weary one ; Joan threw 
herself on her bed, and tried to sleep; but she 



NOTES. 91 

was disturbed in mind. All of a sudden she 
called out to the Sire d'Aulon, her esquire, ' My 
council tells me to march against the English ; 
but I do not know whether it should be against 
their bastilles, or against this F ascot ' {her name 
for Fastolf), you must arm me ! ' The Sire d'Au- 
lon began accordingly to put on her armour. 
During this time she heard a great noise in the 
street, the cry being that the enemy were at that 
very moment inflicting great hurt upon the French. 
' My God,' she exclaimed, ( the blood of our people 
is flowing. Why was I not wakened sooner ? Oh, 
that was ill done. My arms ! my arms ! my 
horse ! ' Leaving behind her esquire, who had 
not yet clad himself in armour, she hastened down 
stairs ; and she found her page loitering before 
the door. ' You wicked boy,' she cried, ( why 
did you not come to tell me that the blood of 
France is being shed ? Quick, quick, my horse ! ' 
Her horse was brought; she desired that her 
banner, which she had left in the house, might be 
reached out to her from the window, and without 
further delay she set forth, hastening towards the 
Porte Bourgogne, from whence the din of battle 
seemed to come. When she had nearly reached 
it, she beheld, carried by her, one of the townsmen 
grievously wounded. ' Alas ! ' said she, w never 
have I seen the blood of Frenchmen flow without 
my hair standing on end.' " — Historical Essays, 
p. 27. 

NOTE (F). Page 61. 

There is one weak point in Joan's testimony, 
namely, her varying accounts of her first inter- 



92 JOAN OF ARC. 

view with the King. How to account for her 
contradictions here, as contrasted with the clear- 
ness, promptness, and consistency of her state- 
ments generally, is one of the problems of her 
history. Probably, memory had somehow become 
bewildered ; or, considering what were the illu- 
sions of her waking dreams, it would not be a 
violent supposition that some vision of her sleep- 
ing hours had become blended with the scene, as 
she really saw it. Lord Mahon thus describes 
the uncertainty we speak of : — " The clearness 
and precision of her replies on these points stand 
forth in strange contrast to the vague and con- 
tradictory accounts which she gives of her first 
interview with the King. On this topic she at 
first refuses to answer altogether, saying that she 
is forbidden by the Voices. But afterwards she 
drops mysterious hints of an angel bringing a 
crown to Charles from heaven, sometimes saying 
that the King alone had beheld this vision, and 
sometimes that it had been before many witnesses. 
In other examinations she declares that she her- 
self was this angel ; in others, again, she appears 
to confound the imaginary crown of the vision 
with the real one at Rheirns." — Historical Essays, 
pp. 49, 50. Michelet has a singular explanation, 
which, after all, may be the real one. " It seems 
to follow from her replies, which, indeed, are very 
obscure, that the crafty court abused her sim- 
plicity, and that, in order to confirm her belief in 
her visions, it had a sort of mystery enacted 
before her, in which an angel appeared carrying 
the crown." — Yol. II. p. 525. 



NOTES. 93 



NOTE (G). Page 81. 

The able work of this distinguished writer is 
deformed by a hatred of England, which would 
be ludicrous, if it were not painful. Every 
thins: about us is sneered at or caricatured. 
Our climate, our scenery, our literature, our 
manners, our diet, are all held up to scorn, and 
that in the text of a grave history of France. 
The narrative is perpetually interrupted for the 
sake of some comment to show that all that was 
virtuous, and refined, and noble, was on the 
French side, while every fault, into which our 
ancestors of five hundred years ago were be- 
trayed, is assumed to be national and characteristic. 
The conceit is simply laughable; but the ma- 
lignity, which helps to keep alive antipathies 
between two such nations, is mischievous and 
wicked. The spirit of the Anti-Jacobin, and of 
newspapers and pamphlets written in a time of 
wars and revolutions, is transplanted into a work 
which assumes to be philosophical, and is designed 
to instruct future generations. A few specimens 
are quoted as literary curiosities. 



I. 

The captivity of the Duke of Orleans, who 
was taken prisoner at Agincourt, and passed the 
twenty-five best years of his life in England, is a 
sad tale, and a very disgraceful one. We English 
will condemn as strongly as Michelet himself the 
bad faith of a jealous government, which could 
deal thus with a prisoner of war, because he was 
of royal blood. But we wonder that a French- 



94 ' JOAN OF ARC. 

man could pen no more suitable paragraph on the 
subject than this. <e Thus he passed long years, 
treated honourably, but strictly, without society 
or amusement, except, at most, hawking or doe 
hunting, w T hich was usually performed on foot, 
and almost without change of place. It was a 
dull diversion in that land of ennui and fogs, in 
which there needs nothing less than all the agi- 
tations of social life, and the most violent exer- 
cises, to make one forget the monotony of an 
unvaried landscape, a climate without a season, 
and a sky without a sun." — Yol. II. p. 442. 

II. 

Here is a passage suggested by a quotation 
from Matthew of Westminster, who makes 
honourable mention of "the fleeces of English 
sheep," as having warmed the sides, and earned 
the blessings, of all the nations of the world. 
Think of a grave historian, one whose business it 
is to collect facts, and weigh and discriminate 
at every point, — who must be on his guard con- 
tinually against generalizing too fast, — professing 
to have got "an intuition of England," which 
enabled him to comprehend her at last, in a day's 
ride from York to Manchester. 

" Wool and meat are what was primitively the 
making of England, and the English race. Eng- 
land was a manufactory of meat before she be- 
came the great manufactory of iron and cloth for 
the world. Her people have been graziers and 
cattle-breeders from time immemorial, — a race 
fed on flesh meat. Hence their fresh complexion, 
beauty and vigour. Their greatest man, Shak- 



NOTES. 95 

speare, was originally a butcher. Let me be 
allowed in this place to record a personal im- 
pression. I had seen London, and great part of 
England and Scotland, and had admired rather 
than comprehended It was not until my return, 
as I journeyed from York to Manchester, crossing 
the island in the direction of its breadth 3 that I, 
at last, had a real intuition of England. It was a 
cold, foggy morning, and the land appeared to 
me not only surrounded, but covered and drenched, 
by the ocean. A pale sunshine hardly coloured 
half the landscape. The new red-brick houses 
would have contrasted offensively with the green 
turf, if the floating mist had not harmonized the 
discordant tints. Above the pastures, covered 
with sheep, flamed the red chimneys of the fac- 
tories. Pasturage, tillage, manufacturing in- 
dustry, all were there, combined in a narrow 
space, accumulated upon, and nourished by, each 
other; the grass feeding on fog, the sheep on 
grass, man on blood. In this greedy climate, 
man, always hungering, can live only by labour. 
Nature compels him to it ; but he fully retaliates 
upon her; he makes her labour, and subjugates 
her with fire and steel. All England pants with 
strife. Her sons seem flushed by combat. Look 
at the Englishman's red face, his strange air, 
You would almost imagine he was drunk; but his 
head and his hand are steady; he is drunk only 
with blood and vigour." — Vol. II. p. 144, 145. 

III. 

The following is a curious transition from a 
narrative about the Black Prince's ill-judged in- 



96 JOAN OF ARC. 

terference in the civil wars of Spain : — " The 
English were exasperated with anger and jealousy, 
and took upon them to restore Don Pedro, to 
replace the bloody executioner of Spain; — always 
that diabolical pride which has so often turned 
their brains, sensible as they seem to be; the 
same which made them burn the Maid of Orleans, 
and which, under Mr. Pitt, would have made 
them burn France."— Vol. II. p. 237, 238. We 
do not pretend to say whether pride, hatred, su- 
perstition, or fear, had most to do with Joan of 
Arc's murder. But a passion for war seems as 
natural a motive to attribute to the Black Prince; 
and, assuredly, in Mr. Burke's " Reflections," and 
" Thoughts on a Regicide Peace," some grave 
reasons are given for jealousy of France, quite 
apart from national pride. 

" Virtues and crimes in them " (the English), 
he says elsewhere, " are almost always pride. 
This immense, profound vice is their principle of 
life, the explanation of their contradictions, the 
secret of their acts." — Vol. II. p. 574. 



IV. 

One would gladly suppose that ignorance was 
the excuse for the falseness of the following 
passage; but how can that be in one who has 
criticized English literature, as he tells us, in his 
" Introduction a l'Histoire Universelle " ? Any 
how it required some hardihood for the country- 
man of Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopedists 
to send abroad statements like these ; — 

" From Shakspeare to Milton, from Milton to 



NOTES. 97 

Byron, their fine and sombre literature is sceptical, 
Judaic, Satanic, in a word anti-Christian. e In 
law,' it has been very well said by a lawyer, 
( the English are J ews ; the French are Chris- 
tians.' What he alleges as to law, a theologian 
would have asserted with regard to faith. The 
Indians of America, who often exhibit so much 
penetration and originality, expressed this dis- 
tinction after their own manner. Christ, said 
one of them, was a Frenchman, whom the 
English crucified in London ; Pontius Pilate was 
an officer in the service of Great Britain." In a 
note he adds, " I do not recollect to have seen 
the name of God in Shakspeare ; if it occur, it is 
very rarely, by chance, and without the shadow 
of a religious sentiment." — Vol. II. p. 574, 575. 



V. 

The following scene is from the field of Agin- 
court. Strange that the sneering tone should 
pursue a Frenchman thither. 

" An eye-witness says, that a moment before 
the battle he beheld from the English ranks an 
affecting spectacle in the other army. The French 
of all parties threw themselves into each other's 
arms, exchanged fprgiveness, and broke bread 
together. From that moment, he adds, hate was 
changed into love, I do not find that the English 
became reconciled to each other. They con- 
fessed ; each man set his own conscience in order, 
without concernino- himself about the rest. The 
English army seems to have been a decent, 
orderly, well-behaved army; there was no gam- 

H 



98 JOAN OF ARC. 

bling in it, no wanton girls, no oaths. Really- 
one hardly sees what they had to confess. Which 
of the two died in better plight!"— Vol. II. p. 441. 
Who shall settle the last question with such 
scanty facts before him? Yet M. Michelet, I 
think, means it to be understood that he has 
decided it in his own mind. The French, who 
embraced before the battle, might be very wicked, 
surely, and wretchedly unfit to die. The English, 
who refrained from embracing, might be in a very 
forgiving mood, notwithstanding. If they really 
had nothing to confess, the balance seems to be 
in their favour. Besides, the whole point of the 
story about the brotherly greetings of the French 
is connected with the fierce civil war which had 
been raging so long in France, and dividing the 
whole country into hostile factions. 



VI. 

The following puff is one of the closing para- 
graphs in his narrative of Joan of Arc : — "It 
was fit the Saviour of France should be a woman. 
France herself was a woman. She had the 
fickleness of the sex, but also its amiable gentle- 
ness, its facile and charming pity, and the excel- 
lence of its first impulses. Even when it took 
delight in vain elegancies and outward over- 
refinements, at core it remained nearer to nature. 
The Frenchman, even though vicious, retained 
more than any other man, good sense and a good 
heart."— Vol. II. p. 586. 



CAXTON AND THE EARLY 
PRINTERS. 



H 2 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 101 



CHAPTER III. 

INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

We turn gladly from such a sickening spectacle 
of guilt and woe to quieter and more homely 
scenes. From the battle-field and the stake we 
will pass to the workshop. In that age of strife, 
— the middle half of the fifteenth century, — 
while England and France were convulsed by 
domestic wars, — while Christians and Moors 
were still contending on Spanish soil, — while the 
Emperors of Germany were battling with Popes 
and Electoral Princes respecting the limits of their 
power, — while Mahomet II. was gathering his 
victorious forces round the walls of Constantinople, 
and aiming the last fatal blow at the throne of the 
Caesars, — a little company of obscure men were 
busily engaged in contriving a new mode of pro- 
pagating knowledge, which was to effect greater 
social changes than all the wars and revolutions 
of many centuries. It is certain that, at some 
time during this period, printed books first saw 
the light. "When Joan of Arc stood before her 
judges, written documents were the only known 

H 3 



102 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



medium for propagating that which men desired 
to make known among their fellows ; and forty 
years later the art had not only been brought to 
considerable perfection, but the secret was out, 
and had travelled to many of the countries in 
Europe. 

We know what the printing-press has done 
since. It has gone on cheapening and multiply- 
ing books, till many a working man has a better 
library than w T as possessed by sovereign princes 
in the fourteenth century. It is recorded, that 
the store of books which had descended to 
Charles V. of France from his ancestors, amounted, 
in the year 1364, to twenty volumes. Some 
seventy years later, a copy of Wiclif's New 
Testament fetched the price of 21. 13s. 4:d. } just 
the amount of a labouring man's wages for a 
whole year. Of course, the common people in 
those days could as little think of possessing a 
book, as of owning a casket of jewels. Convents, 
colleges, and here and there some noble patron of 
letters, had their little treasury of parchment 
manuscripts, which were valued above gold. Few 
even of the wealthiest could afford to buy at the 
rate of a certain Countess of Anjou, who gave for a 
single copy of some favourite homilies five quarters 
of wheat, five quarters of barley, five quarters of 






INVENTION OF PRINTING. 103 

millet, two hundred sheep, and, doubtless, was 
well pleased with her bargain when she got pos- 
session of her bundle of parchment, and used it 
to help her devotions. We need to look back to 
times like those, that we may understand how 
favoured we are in having the materials of 
knowledge, and the means of self-improvement, 
scattered around us in such abundance. The 
poor man's shilling, now-a-days, will go as far in 
the book-market as the Countess's flock of sheep. 
Not only may he buy a yet better book with it, 
but he may have a good choice of books besides 
in the nearest town ; whereas she, perhaps, might 
have wandered over half a province to collect 
half a dozen saleable manuscripts, if she had corn 
and sheep enough left to buy them. 

Gladly, therefore, would we give honour to the 
man who first learned and practised this wonder- 
working art. Who was lief Where was his 
press set up ? The place from which books began 
to go forth were better worth a pilgrimage than 
many a shrine whose stones have been worn hollow 
by kneeling devotees. We should like to know 
from the man's own lips how he lighted on the 
discovery, and what was the first rude form in 
which the idea presented itself to his mind, — 
how the world received the news when it began 

H 4 



104 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

to be published abroad, — what honours were 
heaped u]3on him, — or whether, having con- 
tributed more than all the world besides to 
make other men famous, he lived and died in 
obscurity. A simple, trustworthy record of his 
early struggles, patient labours, and final triumph, 
would be far more interesting than the tale of 
Alexander's victories. 

Unfortunately, no such record exists. 
Origin of The art, which records all other things 

Printing 

obscure. that are done beneath the sun, has given 
us no distinct or satisfactory account of its 
own origin. Something of mystery hangs over 
the birth of this Enchantress. She started up 
before the world to work changes in human 
society, beyond the power of the mightiest kings, 
and the wit of the deepest philosophers ; but she 
does not tell us whence she came, nor where she 
tried the magic of her earliest charm. A day's 
work, four centuries ago, might have saved a 
world of controversy, and given the inventor his 
rightful honours with posterity. A single page, 
printed off with name, place, and date, and sent 
to every library in Europe, with a challenge to 
multiply copies of any given manuscript a hundred 
times faster than the pen, would have settled the 
question at once, and the man who sent it abroad 



INVENTION OF PKINTING. 105 

would have taken his place by the side of Colum- 
bus and Galileo. But in all the books, with 
which the world is filled, no such page is found. 
Instead of a clear narrative of facts, we have 
disputes and controversies between rival cities. 
National animosities have been kindled, and eager 
champions, like knights fighting for the honour 
of their dames, have wielded the pen on either 
side. The poor mute press, unable to tell its own 
tale, has multiplied treatises about itself, and its 
earliest struggles into existence, till it has become 

on ' 

a laborious and bewildering task to read them all, 
and harder still to find out the truth amidst such 
a conflict of opinions. 

The reason of this uncertainty it is not difficult 
to discover. Self-interest was at work, in the 
first instance, to keep the secret as close as pos- 
sible. Up to a certain time manuscripts were the 
only books. Whatever men desired to perpetuate 
and multiply had to be copied laboriously by the 
pen, line for line, and word for word, on paper or 
parchment. If we think how many days would 
be consumed by a good penman, supposing him to 
get up early and go late to rest, in copying out, 
clearly and legibly, a single volume of moderate 
size, we may guess how much he must charge for 
his labour, and consequently how dear each copy 



106 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

would be. While the price was high, some in- 
genious or fortunate person discovered the means 
of producing copies with far less expense of time 
and labour. Wooden blocks, or metal types, cut 
or cast into the form of letters, and impressing the 
same characters on many sheets in succession, 
enabled him to outstrip the readiest scribe, and 
gave him more copies in a few days than the pen 
would produce in as many months. Still, for a 
time, the books would pass for manuscripts, and 3 
of course, would fetch the price of manuscripts in 
the market. The printers undersold the scribes, 
and, so long as they could keep the world in the 
dark, might reap a golden harvest. Instead of 
boasting of their cleverness, therefore, they prac- 
tised the art as cautiously as they could. As few 
hands were employed as possible, and workmen 
were sworn to secrecy by their masters. Some 
years elapsed before the public knew what they 
were purchasing. Men found that books were 
much more plentiful and much cheaper than they 
used to be, and marvelled, probably, where the 
army of scribes was hidden who must be busy in 
producing them; but the busy printer kept his 
secret while he could, and made the most of it. 

The dispute, we have said, is one between rival 
cities ; and we will state, as clearly as we can, the 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 107 

case that is put forward by the several claimants. 
Mayence comes first. In August, _ 

Mayence 

1837, a statue, by Thorwaldsen, was and 
publicly inaugurated in that city, near i& * 

the spot where John Guttenberg once plied 
the printer's craft. It was a day of jubilee, and 
thousands of spectators were collected, among 
whom every country in Europe had its repre- 
sentatives.* The fine old Cathedral was crowded 
in every part ; one sight of the day was a copy of 
Guttenberg's first Bible ; and after this had been 
displayed, and High Mass performed by the 
Bishop, the multitude assembled in a vast amphi- 
theatre opposite the statue. Then a colossal figure 
of Guttenberg, in bronze, holding a matrix in his 
hand, was unveiled ; a hymn was sung by a thou- 
sand voices ; and the day concluded with oratorios 
and processions by torch-light. 

What then has history recorded respecting this 
man ? The most particular and authentic account 
we have is contained in the Annals of Trithemius, 
finished shortly before his death, which took place 
in the year 1516. Speaking of the year 1450, 
he says, " About this time, in the city Account of 
of Mentz, on the Ehine in Germany, Trithemms. 
and not in Italy, as some have erroneously writ* 
* See NOTE (H). 



308 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

ten, that wonderful and unheard-of art of print- 
ing and characterizing books was invented and 
devised by John Guttenberger, a citizen of Mentz, 
who, after expending almost all his substance for 
the discovery of this art, when he was over- 
whelmed with difficulties, and found himself 
foiled, first on one side and then on the other, was 
just on the point of throwing up the thing in de- 
spair; but by the advice of John Fust, who was 
also a citizen of Mentz, and with his money, he 
went on and completed what he had begun. They 
first printed the Vocabulary, called 'Catholicon' 
with the shapes of letters made (scriptis) in a row 
on wooden blocks, and with forms placed together* 
But when they could print nothing else with the 
same forms, because the characters could not be 
detached from the blocks, but were carved upon 
them, as we said, at a later period, a more inge- 
nious device was added to the first invention. 
They devised a mode of casting all the letters in 
the Latin alphabet in a mould which they called 
a matrix, from which they produced characters of 
copper or tin, hard enough to bear the necessary 
pressure ; these they had previously cut with the 
hand. And, truly, this Printing Art had to 
encounter serious difficulties from the time of its 

* See NOTE (I). 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 109 

first discovery, as I myself heard from Peter 
Schoeffer, citizen of Mentz, who was son-in-law 
to the first inventor, John Fust. When they had 
their edition of the Bible in hand, they expended 
four thousand florins before they had completed 
the third quaternion. But this Peter Schoeffer, 
who was then Fust's servant, and afterwards, as I 
have said, became his son-in-law, an ingenious, 
clever man, discovered the method of casting the 
types more easily, and so brought the art to its 
present maturity. And these three men made a 
secret of this printing process for some time, till 
at last by means of their workmen, whose services 
they could not dispense with in their calling, it 
became known at Strasburg first, and by degrees 
universally among other nations. And thus much 
for the marvellous ingenuity of this Printing Art. 
The first inventors were citizens of Mentz, and 
the three partners in the discovery, namely John 
Guttenberger, John Fust, and Peter Schoeffer, 
all lived at Mentz in the house called Zum Jun~ 
gen, which is called the Printing Office to this 
day." 

All this is very probable, and hangs well to- 
gether. We have, first of all, the ingenious in- 
ventor, as is so often the case, calling in the aid 
of the more substantial man to help him out with 



110 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

his scheme, — the two coming together as partners, 
one supplying wit, and the other money, — a third 
party, who began life as a servant, or apprentice, 
suggesting improvements in the art, and rewarded 
most appropriately with the hand of his master's 
daughter. There is the kind of certainty, more- 
over, that we want in historical testimony, the 
author being near enough to the period of which 
he writes, and moreover receiving his information, 
not at second-hand, but from the fountain-head, 
the very workshop in which the first printed 
sheet is said to have seen the light. There is 
documentary evidence, too, to support Trithemius's 
narrative. Undoubtedly, an inscription once 
existed on the front of the Printing Office at 
Mayence, giving Guttenberg the undivided honour 
of the discovery, and bearing the early date of 
1508. Books, moreover, are found, here and 
there, with the years 1460, 1465, and 1468 on 
their title-pages, and all issuing from the Mayence 
press, when as yet the world knew of no other. 

The weak point in the case is this, — that the 
main witness, Peter SchoefTer, is a party interested. 
His own credit was at stake, and that of his part- 
ners. There is no doubt whatever that theirs 
was the most famous printing-house in Europe, 
the best known, and the most productive, when 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. Ill 

he told his story to Trithemius ; but his testimony, 
if there should be any dispute upon the subject, 
can hardly be considered as conclusive with re- 
ference to the first rudiments of the art, and the 
claim of original discovery. There is a circum- 
stance, too, which curiously contrasts with Peter 
Schosffer's statement. His son John succeeded 
to the business, and in the year 1515, in the 
preface to one of his books, he describes himself 
as "the grandson of John Fust, who began of his 
own head (proprio ingenio), in the year 1450, 
to think out and devise the art of Printing, and 
in the year 1452, through the Divine favour, 
completed the discovery, and carried it on to the 
actual work of printing, not without assistance 
from the contrivances of Peter SchoefFer, his 
adopted son." 

It is clear, therefore, that before we Gnttenbero- 
can prove that Guttenberg has earned at Strasburg. 
his statue, we must have recourse to other evi- 
dence. Can we learn any thing respecting him 
beyond the scanty notice in Trithemius ? Is there 
any record of his early struggles and difficulties ? 
May we have a glimpse into his workshop, and 
see him groping his way to the great secret which 
he was enabled by Fust to turn to such good 
account ? The answer to these questions is fur- 



112 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

nished by the records of a lawsuit, which took 
place at Strasburg, in the year 1439. The heirs 
of one Drizehn were the complainants, and they 
alleged as follows : — that Guttenberg, about the 
year 1436, was carrying on business there as a 
polisher of stones, and maker of mirrors, — that 
the deceased and another had entered into part- 
nership with him, on the understanding that he 
was to instruct them in those arts, and in some 
other wonderful secrets, — ■ that while this con- 
nection lasted, Guttenberg, who resided in the 
suburbs of Strasburg, was surprised one day by 
his partners in the exercise of some mysterious 
craft which had been concealed from them, — 
that some altercation ensued, and it was agreed 
that they should share his secret and his venture, 
certain capital being subscribed, a portion of 
which was to be returned to their heirs if any 
of the parties should die within five years. 
Drizehn died before the term had expired, and 
his representatives claimed the fulfilment of the 
contract. Guttenberg, who seems to have been 
an ill-conditioned and quarrelsome man, and was a 
party to more than one law- suit, refused payment, 
and an appeal w T as made to the courts. Evidence 
was given by carpenters, servants, and others, 
which makes it almost certain that the mvsterious 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 113 

craft was none other than that of printing. A 
workman declared that he had been employed, 
three years before, at a sort of press, and had 
received a hundred florins for his labour. Im- 
mediately on Drizehn's death, Guttenberg had 
given orders to his servant to convey certain 
implements from the workshop in the suburbs, 
to a place of secrecy elsewhere ; and, on investi- 
gation, it appeared that among them were a 
quantity of letters cut in wood. 

Here we have Trithemius's story abundantly 
confirmed. To Drizehn's heirs, who brought 
their quarrel into open court, we are indebted 
for this tolerably decisive proof that Guttenberg 
was at work with wooden letters and a press 
some years before the earliest date that is given 
to the Mayence establishment. Up to 1442 he 
was resident iu Strasburg. From that Guttenberg 
period till 1455 he was in partner- at Ma J en ce. 
ship with Fust. And in the interval it is quite 
certain that men had not only learnt to print, 
but to print large books, with workmanlike skill, 
in a good clear type. The evidence is all con- 
sistent and uniform. Trithemius tells us that 
Guttenberg's substance was expended, and his 
patience almost exhausted, when he was joined by 
Fust. The Strasburg witnesses tell us what 



114 INVENTION OF PRINTING. ; 

exactly fits on to this statement, for there we fin 
him first working in secret with very suspicious 
looking tools, and then cast in a lawsuit relating 
to some mysterious craft. Doubtless, then, after 
being partly ruined by costs, — dreading, perhaps 
to seek a partner in Strasburg, where his doings 
had been made more public than he wished, — he 
found his way to Mayence, and lighted, in a happy 
hour, on Fust, a man of substance, who was suffi- 
ciently intelligent and enterprising to discern the 
value of what was offered him, and to venture his 
capital upon experiments in the printing art, which 
proved completely successful. 
His subse- ^ n ^ ne y ear 1455 a dispute between 

quent history, Fust and Q-uttenberg led to a separa^ 
tion between them, and the first, as the monied 
partner, kept possession of the Printing Office. 
At that period the veil was not withdrawn which 
hid the new-born art from public view. The 
great revealer of secrets was itself shrouded i 
obscurity. Consequently, we get no confirmation 
of Guttenberg's claim from title-pages. No book 
survives, — probably no book ever saw the light, 
— bearing on its front the name of the man who 
is supposed to have taught the world to print. 
There is no doubt, however, that, while he la- 
boured at Mayence, the fine Latin folio Bible was 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 115 

completed *, of which a copy was exhibited on 
the Jubilee day in 1837 ; and its large clear type 
proves what advances the art had made in so 
short a period. On leaving the Zum Jungen, he 
is said to have set up another office at Mayence. 
Another account makes him wander back to Stras- 
burg, and try his fortune there ; a third carries 
him on his travels as far as Haerlem. But apart 
from Fust he never prospered. His work seems 
to have been done when he had taught his secret 
to SchcefFer, the man of skill, and with Fust's 
money had been enabled to overcome all diffi- 
culties, and to carry on his art from its earliest 
rudiments to a very high degree of excellence. 

This narrative enables us to estimate claim of 
the value of the claim put forward by Strasbur S- 
Strasburg. " Others have robbed us of our 
honours," its townsmen say. "Here Guttenberg 
found out what he carried to Mayence. That may 
have been the cradle of the art ; but our noble city 
was its birthplace. Among our fathers he lived till 
he had learnt to print, and then enriched others 
by his skill." Having stated the facts of the case, 
we may leave our readers to dispense the credit o£ 



* See NOTE (K> 

12 



116 INVENTION OF POINTING. 

tlie discovery as they please. No doubt, in that 
workshop in the suburbs, the first printer was 
making experiments, and preparing his tools; 
but there is no reason to suppose he ever struck off 
a single sheet before he got to Mayence. There, 
so far as we know, the thought came to maturity, 
and yielded precious fruit. There, certainly, the 
press was set up which fairly exhibited the triumph 
and perfection of the art. There, for half a century 
nearly, he or his partners laboured at their noble 
craft, and made Europe ring with the fame of 
their office, as the fountain head from which the 
fertilising stream had flowed to so many lands. 

Still let Strasburg have its due. The spot on 
which some great idea has struggled for birth is 
no mean spot. If Gruttenberg saw the light there, 
— was trained among its citizens, — set up his 
first rude press just without its walls, — spent his 
substance there in labouring to make his work or 
his tools more perfect, — let the men of Strasburg 
tell the world all this, and rejoice to have it so. 
But they have gone further, and have damaged 
their just pretensions by claiming more than 
fairly belongs to them. 

One Mentel is set up against Guttenberg, and 
John Schotten, who married his granddaughter, 
claims for him the honour of being the " first in- 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 117 

ventor of printing," in a boastful preface bearing 
the date of 1520. The same pretensions were 
formally advanced a century afterwards by a 
learned physician of the same name, who pre- 
tended to be descended from the Strasburg printer, 
and was jealous for the honours of his great grand- 
father, declaring that the invention was his, and 
that Guttenberg stole it. Mentel, doubtless, was 
among the very earliest printers ; none, probably, 
but the celebrated trio of the Zum Jungen pre- 
ceded him. There is an old chronicle published 
at Kome in 1474, which reports, -under the year 
1458, that " John Mentel, a skilful printer, struck 
off three hundred leaves in a day ;" and Schoep- 
pin, the most zealous and able advocate of May- 
ence, gives him credit for having sent out a 
German Bible from the Strasburg press about the 
year 1466. But the probability is, that Gutten- 
berg was his teacher after he had parted company 
with Fust ; and with the fact before us, that no 
publication has an earlier printed date than 1473, 
we cannot admit his claim to compete with those 
who were, undoubtedly, at work twenty years 
sooner. 

Modern writers have taken little ac- Haerlem 
count of the claims of Haerlem : but ancl Koster - 



118 INVENTION OF FEINTING. 

the pretensions of its citizen, Laurence Koster, 
as an original inventor of printing in its rudest 
form, seem to me by no means contemptible ; and 
our story will be incomplete unless his case be 
stated, as well as that of the Germans. 

Hadrian Junius wrote a history of Holland, 
which was published in the year 1578, and is in 
good repute with the learned men of his country. 
In his account of Haerlem the following remark- 
able passage occurs ; — "I will tell what I heard 
from old men whose characters gave weight to 
what they said ; men who had earned distinction 
in the service of the state, and who affirmed most 
gravely that they delivered what was handed 
down to them by their fathers. About a hundred 
and twenty-eight years ago*, one Laurence John, 
having the title of JEdituus or Gustos, dwelt in a 
house of some pretensions near the market-place, 
at Haerlem, opposite the royal palace. This man 
has a rightful claim to the honours which have 
been usurped by others, as the Inventor of the 
Art of Printing, and well deserves all the reward, 

* Junius died in 1575, but this portion of the work may 
have been written much sooner. A hundred and twenty- 
eight years from 1575 carries us back to a period subse- 
quent to the early printing operations at Mayence. But it 
is clear, from a statement which follows, that the author is 
speaking of a time prior to the year 1442. 









INVENTION OF PRINTING. 119 

in the way of fame, which can be heaped upon 
him." The historian then proceeds to narrate, 
with much of detail, how this gentleman, while 
walking in a wood near the city, amused 
himself with cutting some beech wood into the 
shape of letters, — how, with these, inverted like 
a seal, he stamped a line or two on paper, first for 
his own amusement, and then for the use of his 
grandchildren, — how, with the assistance of his 
son-in-law, Thomas Peter, he went on and in- 
vented a more glutinous sort of ink, as the com- 
mon ink was found to run, and then formed blocks 
on which letters were carved, — how, in this way, 
he printed a little book called il The Mirror of 
Redemption,", which the Author had seen, and, 
as nothing, he says, comes to perfection at once, 
he found the backs of the leaves pasted together, 
that the vacant pages might not present an un- 
sightly appearance. He adds that, as customers 
multiplied, the inventor became more fond of his 
art ; — and, being compelled to engage other 
hands, lighted, in an unlucky hour, on one John, 
whom the writer does not expressly name, but 
hints, in connexion with a bad pun, that it was 
Faustus or Fust. This man, he says, played the 
knave, and watching his opportunity, stole away, 
one Christmas Eve, with tools and types, and fled 

I 4 



120 INVFNTION OF PRINTING. 

first to Amsterdam, then to Cologne, and settled 
himself, finally, at Mayence. " There" the his- 
torian adds, " a grammar which was then much 
in use, called Alexandri Galli Doctrmale, and the 
Tractatus Petri Hispani, were printed with the 
very types which Laurence had used at Haer- 
lem." 

Some traditionary and personal anecdotes close 
this story of Hadrian Junius, who is styled by 
his adversaries a " learned physician, critic and 
historian." " I recollect," he says, " that Nicholas 
Gael, my schoolmaster in the days of my youth, 
who was remarkable for an iron memory, and 
venerable for his grey hairs, used to relate to me 
that he had frequently heard Cornelis, the book- 
binder, a decent old man, nearly eighty years of 
age, who had assisted at the Printing Office of Lau- 
rence, relate every particular as he had received 
them from his master, — such as the manner in 
which the discovery was made, the subsequent 
improvements and gradual advancement of the 
art. " He " (that is, the book-binder) " could not 
mention the theft without shedding tears of in- 
dignation at the baseness of the deed. He cursed 
the nights in which he had slept, for months 
together, in the same chamber, with such a 
wretch. All these particulars perfectly accord 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 121 

with the account given by the burgomaster 
Quirinus Talesius, who informed me that he had 
heard similar things from the mouth of the book- 
binder himself." 

It must be allowed that this is not bad tradi- 
tionary evidence; and it gets confirmation in 
minute particulars from the registers of Haerlem ; 
for Cornells, it seems, lived there at the time 
specified, " in Cross Street," and the name of 
Quirinus is enrolled among the civic rulers of the 
day. Guicciardini, too, who was no Dutchman, 
and who published his account of Holland some 
years before the narrative of Hadrian Junius was 
printed, avows his belief that the rudiments of the 
Printing Art came to light at Haerlem, and were 
thence conveyed to Mayence by a servant of the 
original inventor. " There, however? he added, 
" the art was brought to such perfection that many 
persons gave the honour of the discovery to the 
German city." A yet more important witness, 
because much more ancient, is the unknown au- 
thor of a Chronicle of Cologne. " The Printing 
Art," he says, "was first invented at Mentz 
about the year 1440, and the first inventor was a 
citizen of Mentz, though a native of Strasburg, 
John Guttenberg." He adds, however, in the 
very same paragraph, " Although this art, as it is 



122 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

now used, was discovered at Mentz, yet the first 
draft, or model, of it was formed and taken from 
some Donatus's, which before that time had been 
struck off in Holland. Bet the second invention 
was greatly beyond the first in ingenuity and 
workmanlike skill, and is daily advancing to 

greater excellence I heard the beginning 

and progress of the business from Ulrick Zell, an 
honourable gentleman, who was a native of 
Hanover, but in this present year, 1499, is exer- 
cising his printer's art at Cologne, having himself 
introduced it into that city." Now Zell actually 
worked at the Mayence press before the year 
1467, when he settled at Cologne ; and if the 
Chronicler had told us all he heard from Zell 
about "the beginning and progress of the busi- 
ness," we mi^ht have been much wiser than we 

' CD 

are. As it is, we must not assume, I think, that 
Zell vouched for the Dutch portion of the story, 
but only that he described what he knew about 
the Mayence portion; the passage, however, has 
a peculiar value about it as showing the current 
language of the day. The writer, who knew 
what was said about Holland, begins by telling 
the world that Guttenberg of Mayence invented 
printing; then, to save his accuracy, he adds, 
" The first hint, however, came from Holland ; 



INVENTION OF PRINTING. 123 

some books printed there set the Germans think- 
ing and working ; and the second discovery, and, 
far the better, was theirs." 

This distinction, we believe, gives the solution of 
the difficulty. All the world talked as the writer 
did. "Printing began at Mayence," — that is, 
printing, as they saw it, with metal types ; whereas 
few, probably, knew any thing of its earlier stage, 
and the more learned did not think it necessary, 
always, to refer to it. Hadrian Junius, in his 
zeal for his country, says that Koster used " letters 
of tin;"* but in this, probably, he was mistaken. 
I think we may assume that metal types were 
first cast in the Zum Jungen, and gave the May- 
ence printers that advantage which speedily 
turned the eyes of Europe to their city as the 
nursery of the infant art. 

If the question be whether Koster printed 
clumsily at Haerlem before Guttenberg printed 
cleverly at Mayence, some documents in the 
Stadt-house of the Dutch city may help to de- 
termine it. One is a copy of the " Mirror of Ke- 

* These Were afterwards made into wine cans, he says ; 
and these might be seen in Roster's house, which had been 
occupied by his nephew, " a respectable citizen, lately dead." 
The tin letters might have been worth something as wit- 
nesses ; the tin cans, I am afraid, will hardly supply their 
place. 



124 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

demption," a small quarto, printed on one side 
only of each leaf, the blank side having paper 
pasted over it, and the pages being made to face 
each other. None of the lines are straight, and 
many of the letters stand out of their places. It 
is quite rude enough to be the first book which 
ever saw the light, and the tradition of the place 
assigns a date somewhere about the year 1430. 
One thing seems tolerably certain, that the man 
who printed in that style was an independent dis- 
coverer ; the German printers never taught him ; 
for they had learned to use good metal types, 
and to print straight lines, and to put all the 
letters in their places, before their secret tran- 
spired. 

Much, therefore, may be said for the claims of 
Haerlem up to a certain point. But it is very 
probable that Guttenberg was at work in the 
suburbs of Strasburg without ever having heard of 
what Koster was doing at Haerlem ; or, if a sight 
of a Dutch Donatus, and a rumour about wooden 
letters, led him to speculate about the possible 
multiplication of copies by the stamping process, 
that will make no deduction from his honest fame. 
Certainly, we shall not do, as some zealous Haer- 
lemists have done, and connect his name with the 
story about the runaway servant and the stolen 



INVENTION OF FEINTING. 125 

types.* It may be true that Koster's man, John, 
decamped one Christmas Eve ; or this may be a 
gossiping tale, invented by some who wished 
to get for their ingenious countryman the credit 
of all that had been done at Mayence. But in 
the absence of any evidence to connect Gutten- 
berg with Haerlem, or Koster, or with any one 
who ever saw either of them, we shall not con- 
clude that he either played the thief, or har- 
boured the thief, or did any thing unbecoming an 
upright man. He and his partners were certainly 
ingenious, enterprising men, and have made the 
world their debtors. We will gladly believe them 
all to have been honest men, besides ; and will 
hope that the story which makes a breach of trust 
the connecting link between the two offices at 
Haerlem and Mayence is a romance of a later 
date. 

Fust and Shoeffer carried on business printing art 
together after Gruttenberg left them ; made known - 
and in 1457, a Psalter was published, in which 
the announcement is made that the work was not 
executed by the pen, but " ad inventionem arti- 
jiciosam imprimendi et cliaracterizandV After 
that period the two names stand together on the 

* See NOTE (L). 



126 INVENTION OF PRINTING. 

title-pages which issued from the Mayence press 
till the year 1466, when Fust died ; and from that 
time Schoeffer stands alone till 1492, when, after 
some fifty years of useful service, he followed his 
father-in-law to the grave. In the lifetime of both 
of them, however, as early as 1462, the mysteries 
of their craft were revealed, and men trained under 
their eye went into other lands to enlighten and 
enrich them. In that year Mayence was taken 
after a siege ; the printers were scattered, and the 
world was not slow to find out the worth of the 
treasure which they carried with them. These 
busy men soon got to work elsewhere, and began 
to date from their new homes. In less than ten 
years from their dispersion we have certain evi- 
dence from title-pages that presses were at work, 
and books published, in Strasburg, Augsburg, 
Cologne, Nuremburg, Lubeck, Treves, Spires, 
Venice, Milan, Placentia, Yerona, Pavia, Naples, 
Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Parma, Padua, 
Mantua, Rome and Paris. 



C AX TON. 127 



CHAPTER IT. 

CAXTON. 

" It was in the year 1474," says Gibbon, " that 
our first press was established in Westminster 
Abbey by William Caxton ; but in the choice of 
his authors that liberal and industrious artist was 
induced to comply with the vicious taste of his 
hearers, to gratify the nobles with treatises on 
heraldry, hawking, and the game of chess, and 
to amuse the popular credulity with romances of 
fabulous knights, and legends of more fabulous 
saints." If the li knights " were fabulous, that is, 
never existed, it is difficult to imagine how the 
f saints " were more fabulous, that is, existed still 
less ; but though it was not easy for Gibbon to 
write soberly when saints came in his way, his 
historical accuracy is undoubted, and the fact 
which he announces, as to Caxton's pre-eminence, 
has been admitted, almost universally, by men of 
letters. The honours of Westminster, how- 
ever, like those of Mayence, have not been undis- 
puted ; Caxton, like Guttenberg, has had a rival : 



128 CAXTON". 

and, curiously enough, Haerlem figures in both 
stories. 

It is an undoubted fact, that in the public 
library at Cambridge there is a small quarto 
volume, a Latin Exposition of the Acts of the 
Apostles by St. Jerome, which bears on its title- 
page these remarkable words, " Printed and 
finished at Oxford on the 17th of December, 
1468." On this foundation a story has been 
built, consisting of certain statements, very posi- 
tively made, but very scantily proved, by one 
Richard Atkyns, who published a book on the 
Origin and Growth of Printing in 1664. Car- 
dinal Bourchier, he tells us, who w T as Archbishop 
of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VI., 
when printing began to make some noise in the 
world, conceived the idea of buying or stealing a 
workman from Holland who should teach. En- 
glishmen this useful art. A thousand marks were 
required to carry out the plan, of which three 
hundred were supplied by the archbishop, and the 
rest from the royal treasury. Mr, Tumour was 
employed in this mission, " who took to his as- 
sistance Mr. Caxton, a citizen of good abilities, 
who traded much with Holland ; " and the two 
C( went first to Amsterdam, and then to Leyden, 
not daring to enter Haerlem itself." When the 



CAXTON. 129 

thousand marks were all spent " in gifts and ex- 
pences" (to whom and/br what the historian does 
not say), they begged five hundred more of the 
King, which he was liberal enough to send. At 
last a bargain was struck between Mr. Tumour 
and two Hollanders to bring off one of the under- 
workinen, Corsellis by name, who stole away by 
night and got safe to London. " It was not 
thought prudent to set him on work there " (why 
it is impossible to guess) ; so he was sent to Ox- 
ford, and guarded till he had taught his art to 
others; so that in that city, Mr. Atkyns saith, 
"printing was first set up in England, before 
there was printing press or printer in France, 
Spain, Italy or Germany, except Mentz." For 
the truth of this history, he vouches a certain 
record belonging to the Lambeth library, of which 
a (t worthy person " gave him a copy ; but the 
original, so far as appears, no one ever saw. 

It is very extraordinary, certainly, that a man 
should invent such a story, and then print it ; but 
it would be much more extraordinary that Caxton, 
who loves to tell us all about himself and his 
patrons in his Prefaces, should say nothing about 
the most important transaction in his life. It 
would be much more extraordinary that he should 
have enjoyed for so long a time the undisputed re- 

K 



130 CAXTON. 

putation of the first English printer, if there was 
a rival press in so public a place as Oxford, and 
books were current, with a date earlier than his 
earliest, stamped upon their front. Mr. Atkyns's 
story we do not pretend to account for; but the 
date of the Oxford Jerome, as Dr. Middleton has 
argued, is, in all probability, a misprint, and the 
1468 ought to be 1478. Such errors, as he has 
shown, are by no means uncommon in the early 
history of printing ; and the probability of this 
conjecture is greatly increased by the fact that no 
other book from the Oxford press has been dis- 
covered of an earlier date than 1479. 

But, really, if the facts were better vouched 
for, the question is too trifling to be worth 
settling. It is not the Mentz and Haerlem ques- 
tion over again. Whether Guttenberg has a 
right to his honours, — whether he fairly dis- 
covered for himself the art which has done more 
for the world than any other, or merely stole his 
master's invention, and improved upon it, — this, 
we cannot help feeling, is a most interesting his- 
torical inquiry. But whether a certain press 
which was brought from Holland and set up at 
Oxford, or a certain other press which was brought 
from Germany and set up at Westminster, began 
to work first, cannot at all signify to England or 



CAXTON. 131 

the world. In either case, Caxton was the 

FATHER OF ENGLISH PRINTING. His works 

prove that he planted the stately tree in a kindly 
soil, and watched its early growth, and gathered 
fruit from its spreading branches for the public 
good. If Corsellis ever lived, we know that he 
did not teach Caxton, for Caxton learnt his art 
not at Oxford, but in Germany. English lite- 
rature would be precisely where it is if Corsellis 
had stayed at Haerlem, and died there. Caxton, 
on the other hand, raised up a school of printers. 
His workshop was the centre from which light 
streamed over England for more than one gene- 
ration. He selected foreign works which he 
thought would improve his countrymen, and put 
them into his best English first, and printed them 
with his best types afterwards. He toiled to 
extreme old age like one who felt that he had 
a vocation to do this particular work, and must 
serve God* with such gifts as he had. The fame 
of a man like that could not be touched by the 
date upon half a dozen ancient title-pages, even 
if they were correctly printed ; and it is highly 
probable that the one witness produced to mag- 
nify the Oxford press is a false witness. 

Caxton is his own biographer. Almost all that 



132 CAXTON. 

we know of him is supplied by his title-pages, 
and by the prefaces to his works, in which, before 
getting to more serious work, he loves to gossip 
with the reader. We shall cull from these a few 
particulars which mark the character of the man, 
and bring before us some of the peculiar features 
of his age. 

He was born in the Weald of Kent, 

Caxton . . . 

apprenticed and apprenticed to a citizen of London 

A. D. 1428. about the year 14 A g> j n hig youthj he 

tells us, he was " set to school " by his parents, — 
probably a rare privilege for a youth of his class, 
as he makes special mention of it fifty years after- 
wards, and says that he felt bound, on that ac- 
count, to pray for his father's and mother's souls 
who had enabled him to " get his living truly." 
His master was Robert Large, a mercer, who 
rose to the dignity of lord mayor. Of his youth 
Ave hear but little, but can hardly doubt that he 
was gifted by nature with a studious taste, which 
his situation in early life gave him some oppor- 
tunities for cultivating. The mercers of those 
clays were not only dealers in silks and drapery, 
but general merchants who bought and sold a 
great variety of articles on commission. The 
commerce between England and the Low Coun- 
tries passed mainly through their hands, our wools 






CAXTON. 133 

being exchanged for such articles of luxury as 
were in request among the nobles and gentry of 
the fifteenth century. Among these, manuscripts 
would sometimes find their way to the mer- 
chant's house, and a studious lad might get a 
glance, now and then, at some book of devotion, 
or tale of chivalry, on its passage to a high-born 
customer. If his early ideas were thus asso- 
ciated with literature as something quite beyond 
the reach of any but the wealthy, he must have 
rejoiced the more when he began to exercise the 
art, a mile or two only from his master's shop, 
which was to make books a marketable commo- 
dity among persons of humble fortunes. 

Robert Large, who, from his legacies jjis residence 
to the Church, the poor, and London abroad - 
Bridge, seems to have been a man of substance, 
died in the year 1441, and left his " servant, 
William Caxton, twenty marks," about 13Z. This 
little capital was, probably, embarked in some 
foreign venture ; for during thirty years from this 
time he resided almost constantly in Holland or 
Flanders. There, it seems, he prospered, and 
rose to some consequence, though the nature of 
his employment, and the stages of his advance- 
ment, are hidden in obscurity ; for in the year 
1464 we find him named by Edward IV. as one 

K 3 



134 CAXTON. 

of two persons appointed to negotiate a com- 
mercial treaty with the Duke of Burgundy. 

For twenty years before that time the two 
countries had been proscribing each other's goods, 
and trying in vain to create home manufactures 
by ordinances and acts of parliament, — by fine, 
confiscation, and banishment. " It hath been 
piteously shewed and complained," says one of 
the statutes of the day, " by the artificers of 
manual occupations, how that they be greatly 
impoverished, and much hindered of their 
worldly increase, by the great multitude of com- 
modities, pertaining to their mysteries, being fully 
wrought and ready made to sale, fetched and 
brought from beyond the sea, whereof the greatest 
part in substance is deceitful ; by which the said 
artificers cannot live as they have done in times 
past, but divers of them be unoccupied, and do 
hardly live in great poverty, idleness, and ruin." 
Wherefore, say the lawmakers, let no man bring 
in from abroad caps, laces or ribbons, — saddles, 
stirrups or spurs, — hammers, fire-tongs or drip- 
ping-pans, — gloves, buskins or shoes, — knives, 
daggers or bodkins, — chafing-dishes or candle- 
sticks, — ladles or basins, — hats or brushes, — 
and if he does, half of the said wares shall be 
forfeited to the King, and the other half to the j 



CAXTON. 135 

person who shall first seize them. To this famous 
enactment Burgundy replied by an ordinance 
which bore on the face of it that it was " ever- 
more to endure, and never to be repealed," de- 
claring that all English cloth and wool that went 
thither should be " banned and burnt." 

Under these circumstances, Mr. Knight's con- 
jecture seems highly probable, that Caxton was, 
in fact, an " accredited smuggler," and that his 
irregular business was carried on with the con- 
nivance of those royal personages who first made 
absurd laws and then countenanced a contraband 
trade for their own convenience. This would 
account for the obscurity which hangs over so 
large a portion of his life, for his complete silence 
as to his vocation during the whole of that period, 
and for his selection as a negotiator when both 
parties began to long for peace. Two years were 
occupied in bringing this business to a conclusion ; 
and in the following year, 1467, Philip the Good, 
Duke of Burgundy, was succeeded by his son, 
Charles the Bold, whose impetuous character, and. 
strange adventurous career, are depicted so vividly 
by Sir Walter Scott in " Quentin Durward." 

With such a man one of Caxton's habits would 
seem to have little in common ; but the Duke 
married Margaret, sister to our Edward IV., and, 

K 4 



136 CAXTOtf. 

as an officer in her household, he occupied a place 
for some time in the court of Burgundy. Here, 
again, Caxton's particular vocation is unknown. 
He tells us expressly that he was " servant unto 
her Grace, and received of her yearly fee," but 
the nature of the service, and the amount of the 
fee, he nowhere confides to his readers. It is 
plain that he was not hard worked, and that he 
lived on no distant terms with his mistress ; 
for he took to literature, it seems, through fear 
of idleness, and consulted with the Duchess 
respecting his book-making schemes. The an- 
nouncement of his labours as a translator is plea- 
santly told by himself in one of his auto-biogra- 
phical prefaces. 

Caxton a " When I remember that every man 

Translator. - g bounden by the commandment and 
counsel of the wise man to eschew sloth and 
idleness, which is the mother and nourisher of 
vices, and ought to put himself unto virtuous 
occupation and business,- — then I, having no 
great charge or occupation, following the said 
counsel, took a French book, and read therein 
many strange and marvellous histories, wherein I 
had great pleasure and delight, as well for the 
novelty of the same as for the fair language of 
the French, which was in prose, so well and 



CAXTOKT. 137 

compendiously set and written, methought I 
understood the sentence and substance of every 
matter.* And forasmuch as this book was new, 
and late made and drawn into French, and I 
never had seen it in our English tongue, I 
thought in myself it should be a good business to 
translate it into our English, to the end that it 
might be had as well in the kingdom of England 
as in other lands, and also for to pass therewith 
the time, and thus concluded in myself to begin 
this said work, and forthwith took pen and ink, 
and began boldly to run forth, as blind Bayard 
in this present work, which is named the Becule 
(Summary) of the Trojan Histories. And after- 
wards when I remembered myself of my simple- 
ness and unperfectness that I had in both lan- 
guages, that is to wit in French and in English, 
(for in France was I never, and was born, and 
learned mine English in Kent, in the Weald, 
where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude 
English as in any place of England, and have 
continued by the space of thirty years for the 
most part in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, 
Holland, and Zealand ;) and thus when all these 
things came before me, after that I had made 
and written five or six quires, I felt in despair of 
* See NOTE (M). 



138 CAXTON. 

this work, and purposed no more to have con- 
tinued therein, and the quires were lying apart, 
and in two years after laboured no more in this 
work, and was fully in will to have left it." But 
he had shown it one day to the Lady Margaret, 
and she criticized his English a little, and then 
told him by all means to go on with the work 
and finish it, "whose dreadful commandment" 
was to him a law, so that after his " simple and 
poor cunning " he " forthwith went and laboured 
in the said translation," and meekly besought her 
Highness to "accept and take in gree*, his 
simple and rude work," and all others who should 
read it to correct it where it was wrong, and to 
hold him excused for its simplicity and rudeness. 
His wander- While Caxton was thus engaged, 
inglife. he led an unsett i e d life; for he tells 

us the translation was besrun at Bruges, con- 
tinued at Ghent, and finished at Cologne in 
the year 1471. The times, he says, were trou- 
blous and contentious: Duke Charles's motions, 
we know from other quarters, were rapid and 
eccentric; and his Duchess, as well as her 
servant in an unknown capacity, may have been 

* The first obsolete word in the whole passage. " Gree, good- 
will, favour." — Johnson, who quotes from Spenser, — 

" Which she accepts with thanks and goodly gree." 



CAXTON. 139 

compelled to shift their quarters frequently. 
Caxton meant to have finished his task at the 
end of the second book, "John Lydgate, monk 
of Bury, having made a poem out of the third 
book," which describes the destruction of Troy ; 
and for himself, as compared with "that wor- 
shipful and religious man," he did not feel him- 
self worthy to " bear his ink-horn after him." 
But Caxton loved the work, evidently, and was 
loath to part with it. Lydgate's paraphrase was 
in English, to be sure, but in rhyme, and not in 
prose ; — and men have different tastes, some 
liking verse best, and others not ; — and his pre- 
decessor, possibly, may have translated some 
other Author ; — and his Lady might take it 
kindly ; — and, besides all this, he had " good 
leisure " just then, being in Cologne, and having 
nothing else to do ; — so for all these reasons he 
got to work again, and told the world, for the 
first time, in plain English, how the noble Hector 
fell, and by what arts Troy was betrayed to 
ruin. 

So much for the commencement of Caxton a 
Caxton's labours as an Author. But what Prmter - 
made him a Printer? Where did he first hear 
of the new art, and how? From whom did 
he learn his business, and in what place did he 



140 CAXTON. 

set up his first types ? It is singular that, having 
told us so much about himself, he has not told us 
any of these things. At the end of the third 
book of this same " History of Troy," there is a 
most curious and interesting passage, in which, 
for the first time, we hear of him in connection 
with the calling which was to make his name 
immortal; but even there we have no note of 
time or place. " Thus end I this book," he says, 
" which I have translated after mine author, as 
nigh as God hath given me cunning, to whom be 
given the laud and praising. And for as much as 
in the writing of the same my pen is worn, mine 
hand weary and not stedfast, mine eye dimmed 
with overmuch looking on the white paper, and 
my courage not so prone and ready to labour as 
it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily^ 
and feebleth all the body, and also because I have 
promised to divers gentlemen and to my friends 
to address to them, as hastily as I might, this 
said book, — therefore I have practised and learned, 
at my great charge and dispense, to ordain this 
said book in print after the manner and form as 
ye may here see (and is not written with pen and 
ink as other books are), to the end that every 
man may have them at once ; for all the books of 
this story, named the Recule of the Histories of 



CAXTON". 141 

Troy, thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun 
in one day and finished in one day."* 

This was, in all probability, Cax- His ear i[ est 
ton's earliest publication; and if so, works - 
we cannot doubt that, while the work was in 
progress, his thoughts took a new direction, and 
the work, which he began for the Lady Margaret 
and a few high-born dames and gentlemen, he 
finished with quite another intention, having 
learnt, in the mean time, how copies might be 
multiplied so that one man should do the work of 
fifty scribes. Clearly he was not a printer when, 
at Bruges, in March, 1468, he began to translate 
romances for the sake of having something to do. 
We can hardly think that he had learnt the art, 
or was in the act of mastering its difficult pro- 
cesses, when, as late as the summer of 1470, per- 
haps later, he had " good leisure," and continued 
his work for the " eschewing of idleness." When 
the History of Troy is all rendered into En- 
glish, we have it under his own hand that he was 
at Cologne. We know, too, that by that time 
the first Cologne press was at work; and some 
rhymes of Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's assistant 
and successor at the Westminster press, expressly 
inform us that his master printed in that city.f 

* See NOTE (IS T ). f See NOTE (0). 



142 CAXTOK 

There we cannot doubt, then, he found what 
completely cured him of his roving, desultory- 
habits, developed his latent energies, and gave a 
new impulse to his character. Being an in- 
genious, persevering man, fond of quiet pursuits, 
with a dash of literary ambition in his nature, 
what was said of the novel art would prove ex- 
citing and captivating in no common degree. 
While he was writing and translating, we can 
easily imagine how the fire would kindle, and 
how pleasant would be the thought that this 
famous work, which he prized so highly, might 
be sold for a reasonable sum, and become the 
delight of countless readers. When it was finished, 
therefore, we suppose him to have learnt how to 
make these dreams realities. At the age of fifty- 
five he served a second apprenticeship, learned 
how to set the types, and arrange the pages, and 
strike off a hundred fair sheets in a day; and, 
when he had become master of the craft, put to 
press his own well-loved Tale of Troy. If 
eighteen months, or two years, were thus occu- 
pied, 1473 will be the date to be supplied on 
Caxton's first title-page*; and his second, ■ that 
which announces the Game and Play of Chess, 
bears the date of 1474. 

* See NOTE (P). 



CAXTOtf. 143 

Again we have a gap in his history which 
neither his own pen, nor that of biographers, en- 
ables us to supply. We do not know when he 
returned to England. The wars of the Roses 
had left his unhappy country in the last stage of 
exhaustion, — its wealth consumed, its commerce 
interrupted, and the flower of its nobility cut off 
in the field, or on the scaffold. There was 
little, just then, to attract homewards one who 
had been so long abroad ; and, as a prudent man, 
Caxton would desire thoroughly to master his art 
before he ventured to transplant it to his native 
soil. The Printer, in those early clays, was a 
man of many trades. He made his own press, 
or, at any rate, was competent to overlook its 
construction, and to give directions for necessary 
repairs. He had to cast his own types in moulds 
which were part of his stock in trade, — to bind 
the printed sheets in volumes, — and then to be 
his own publisher, — incurring all the risk of un- 
profitable ventures and unsold copies. With so 

i much to learn and bring home, a year or two 
would hardly suffice to acquire the competent 

[ skill in each department ; and for a yet longer 
period it is highly probable that Caxton was a 
busy resident in Cologne. 

After the publication of the History of 



144 CAXTON. 

Returns to Troy, ^ e near n0 m °re of Lady 
England. Margaret or the court of Burgundy. 
The Game of Chess was dedicated to the Duke 
of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV. ; and 
The Life of Jason, his next work, is humbly and 
most respectfully presented to the little Prince of 
Wales, then three or four years old, in the hope, 
as the author confesses, that the story of the 
Golden Fleece will be admitted to the royal 
nursery, and draw the child on to the reading of 
English. Both works, therefore, were, in all pro- 
bability, printed in England ; but we have no 
certain evidence of his being settled here before 
1477, when he sent forth the Dictes and Sayings 
of Philosophers, and announced that it was " Em- 
prynted by William Caxton at Westmestre." 

Caxton's From the time of Caxton's settle- 

Industry. ment in England to the day of his 
death, his history is traced by his works. His 
press was set up beneath the roof of West- 
minster Abbey, and there for some fifteen years, 
during four successive reigns, it was kept actively 
at work. Steadily he laboured on at his allotted 
task, and for one who began late, and had to strug- 
gle with all the difficulties of a new craft, it is 
marvellous to see what he lived to accomplish. 
His translations alone, Dr. Dibdin tells us, amount 



CAXTON. 145 

to five thousand folio pages, and would fill twenty- 
five modern octavos. And all these works he 
printed, besides a number of others which he 
found in English, and made current among his 
countrymen. Before his labours ceased, a new 
aera had begun for England under the settled 
and pacific rule of Henry VII. ; and in the age 
that followed, books had a better chance of beino- 

CD 

sold and read than during the troubled and dis- 
astrous period of the 15th century. 

Of all the works which he printed p r i n t er of 
during that period, " romances of fabu- Romances. 
lous knights" form a large proportion, and were 
doubtless among the most popular of his publi- 
cations. There is the Noble History of King Arthur, 
with a preface to prove it no fable, but a veritable 
narrative of bygone events, — and the History of 
the valiant Knight Paris, not him of Troy, but 
one who loved the fair Yienne, instead of the 
fairer Helen, — the Knight of the Tower, — the 
| loves of Prince Blanchardin, son of the King of 
Ffryse, and the beauteous Eglantine, Queen of 
Tormady, — Godfrey of Boulogne, too, printed 
purposely, as he tells us, to rouse England and 
Christendom to a new Crusade. What Caxton 
selected of tha,t sort, as well as his Fayt of Arms 
and Order of Chivalry, containing the rules and 

L 



146 CAXTON. 

practice of kighthood, were not intended, merely, I 
to cater to a prevalent taste. He mourned, in 
honest sincerity of heart, that the race was dying 
out which once figured in jousts and tournaments ; 3 
and what he could do, in his retreat at West- j 
minster, to check this growing evil he did with 
all his might. He multiplied books to show the j 
gentlemen of England what knights of renown 
had done in better times, and added exhortations 
of his own to rouse their slumbering manhood, 
It is amusing to read these laments of the old 
man, once a mercer and now a printer, and to 
think how busily he was engaged in making his 
words of none effect by providing more rational 
entertainment for the men who wore swords, and 
had been fond of using them too freely. " ye 
knights of England," he says, " where is the 
custom and usage of noble chivalry that was 
used in those days? (the days of King Arthur 
and the Round Table). What do ye now, but go 
to the baths and play at dice ? And some, not 
well advised, use not honest and good rule, against 
all order of knighthood. Leave this, leave it, and 
read the noble volumes of St. Graal, of Lancelot, 
of Galaad, of Trystram, of Perse Forest, of Per- 
cy val, of Gawayn, and many more ; there shall ye 
see manhood, courtesv, and gentleness. . . . Read 



CAXTCXN-. 147 

Froissart, and also behold that noble and victorious 
King Henry the Fifth, and the captains under him, 
— his brethren, the Earls of Salisbury, Montague, 
and many other, whose names shine gloriously by 
their virtuous noblesse and acts that they did in 
the honour of the order of chivalry. Alas ! what 
do ye but sleep and take ease, and are all dis- 
ordered from chivalry ? I would demand a 
question if I should not displease. How many 
knights be there now in England that have the 
use and the exercise of a knight ? that is to wit, 
that he knoweth his horse, and his horse him. I 
suppose, an a due search should be made, there 
should be many found that lack ; the more pity 
is. I would it pleased our Sovereign Lord that, 
twice or thrice in a year, or at the least once, he 
would do cry (cause to be proclaimed) jousts of 
peace, to the end that every knight should have 
horse and harness, and also the use and craft of 
i a knight, and also to tournoye one against one, 
I or two against two, and the best to have a prize, 
; a diamond or jewel, such as should please the 
prince." 

Many of Caxton's publications, Moral publi- 
• however, were of a graver character. catl0ns - 
Among these are the Book of Good Manners, 
\ — the Life of Christ, — the Golden Legend, — the 

L 2 



148 CAXTON. 

Sayings of Philosophers, — the Cordial, or Four 
Last Things. The two last were supplied to 
him by the accomplished and unfortunate Lord 
Rivers, who figures in Shakspeare's " Richard the 
Third," and was one of the victims of that mo- 
narch's tyranny. The friendship between him 
and Caxton was creditable to both, and was the 
means of turning the Printing Art to its noblest 
use, the courtier employing his leisure in trans- 
lating what he judged profitable for his country- 
men, and the tradesman gladly seconding his 
wishes by scattering them over the broad realm 
of England. A passage from the Preface to the 
Sayings of Philosophers is worth quoting, both 
as showing the terms on w T hich they lived, and 
also as affording a good specimen of Caxton's 
quiet humour, and quaint, homely style. I shall, 
therefore, give it entire. " Here endeth the 
Book named the Dictes or Sayings of Philo- 
sophers, imprinted by me, William Caxton, at 
Westminster, the year of our Lord 1477; which 
work is late translated out of the French into 
English by the noble and puissant Anthony, Earl 
of Rivers, Governor of my Lord Prince of Wales. 
And it is so that at such time, as he had accom- 
plished this said work, it liked him to send it to 
me in certain quires to oversee ; which forthwith 



CAXTOX. 149 

I saw, and found therein many great, notable and 
wise sayings of the Philosophers, according unto 
the books made in French which I had oft afore 
read ; but certainly I had seen none in English 
till that time. And so afterward I came unto 
my said Lord, and told him how I had read and 
seen his book, and that he had done a meritorious 
deed in the labour of the translation thereof into 
our English tongue. Then my said Lord desired 
me to oversee it, and where as I should find fault, 
to correct it. Wherein I answered unto his 
Lordship that I could not amend it, for it was 
right well and cunningly made and translated 
into right good and fair English. Notwithstand- 
ing he wished me to oversee it, and shewed me 
divers things which, as him seemed, might be left 
out, and also desired me, that done, to put the 
said book in print. And thus obeying his request 
and commandment, I have put me in devoir to 
oversee this his said book, and beholden as nigh as 
I could how it accordeth with the original, being 
in French ; and I find nothing discordant therein 
save only in the sayings of Socrates, wherein I 
find that my said Lord hath left out clivers con- 
clusions touching w omen. Whereof I marvelled 
that my said Lord hath not writ on them, nor 
what hath moved him so to do, nor what cause 

L 3 



150 CAXTON. 

he had at that time. But I suppose that some 
fair lady hath desired him to leave it out of his 
book, — or else he was amorous on some noble 
lady for whose love he would not set it in his 
book, — or else, for the very affection, love, and 
goodwill that he hath unto all ladies and gentle- 
women, he thought that Socrates wrote of women 
more than truth; which I cannot think that so 
true a man, and so noble a philosopher, as Socrates 
was would write otherwise than truth. For if he 
had made fault in writing of women, he ought 
not, nor should not, be believed in his other 
sayings. But I perceive that my said Lord 
knoweth verily that such defaults be not had nor 
found in the women dwelling in these parts and 
regions of the world. Socrates was a Greek, born 
in a far country from hence, which country is all 
of other conditions than this is, and men and 
women of other nature than they be here in this 
country. For I wot well, of whatsoever con- 
dition women be in Greece, the women of this 
country be right good, wise, pleasant, humble, 
discreet, sober, chaste, obedient to their husbands, 
true, secret, stedfast, ever busy and never idle, 
attemperate in speaking, and virtuous in all their 
works, or, at least, should be so. For which 
causes so evident, my said Lord, as I suppose, 



CAXTCXN". 151 

thought it was not of necessity to set in his book 
the . sayings of his author, Socrates, touching 
women. But forasmuch as I had commandment 
of my said Lord to correct and amend whereas I 
should find fault, and other find I none save that 
he hath left out these sayings about the women 
of Greece, — therefore, in accomplishing his com- 
mandment, forasmuch as I am not in certain 
whether it was in my Lord's copy or not, or else 
peradventure that the wind had blown over the 
leaf at the time of the translation of his book, 
I purpose to write those same sayings of that 
Greek Socrates, which wrote of those women of 
Greece, and nothing of them of this kingdom, 
whom I suppose he never knew ; for if he had,, 
I dare plainly say that he would have reserved 
(excepted) them in especial in his said Dictes." 
Then follow certain sayings, not over civil, 
certainly, respecting the gentler sex, which we 
hope, for the sake of Athenian morals, or for his 
own credit as to choice of company, the philo- 
sopher never spoke. 

One of Caxton's religious publications was the 
Pilgrimage of the Soul, a curious specimen of the 
taste and theology of the age in which it was 
printed and found favour. It is writ'ten partly 
in poetry, and partly in prose, and the solemn 
l 4 



152 CAXTON. 

and the ludicrous are strangely mingled together. 
With our notions, the title suggests an allegory 
relating to our earthly pilgrimage, which shall set 
forth the toils and perils of the way, furnish us 
with suitable helps and encouragements, and re- 
mind us of the blessed home which is to receive 
the faithful when their work is done. Such is 
Bunyan's dream, full of imagination, yet practical 
and useful too, — amusing our childhood with its 
varied and appropriate symbols, but natural and 
life-like all through, and teaching us some lesson 
of heavenly wisdom in almost every parable. 
Caxton's book is quite of another sort. The story 
does not belong to this world, every scene being 
laid beyond its confines. It describes the wan- 
derings of a soul after it has left the body, — its 
descent to purgatory, its journeyings through it, 
and departure out of it. The narrator begins 
with describing his own death, and sees Dame 
Misericorde " lap his body in a clean linen cloth, 
and so full honestly lay it in the earth," while 
Dame Prayer speeds her to heaven on the errand 
of pleading his cause there before Sathanas is 
permitted to seize him. There are specimens in 
abundance of the wretched taste of the much- 
lauded medieval times, — conversations in the 
homeliest style between Dame Misericorde and 



CAXTON. 153 

St. Michael, also between Lucifer and Dame 
Pride, his daughter, — such ditties in rhyme as the 
" Green Tree's complaint of the Dry for spoiling 
her sweet apple," — minute descriptions of the 
torments of hell, — busy fiends, for instance, with 
bellows and iron forks, — as unlike Milton in the 
higher flights as it is distant from the good sense 
and holv feeling of the " Pilgrim's Progress " in 
the simpler portions. Books of this sort are much 
better than curiosities for the antiquarian. They 
are historical monuments, helping us to measure 
the wide difference between the popular religion 
of Roman Catholic England, and that which has 
succeeded it since the Bible and the Reformation 
have banished puerilities from holy ground. Men 
carried about poor, wretched tapers because the 
heavenly light was hidden ; but the tales and alle- 
gories, which amused both the vulgar and the 
learned, had no sound in them of the divine 
parables which enrich the Sacred Volume. 

Caxton was a printer of history, and, Historical 
in a small way, a writer of history, publications, 
too. " The fruits of virtue," he writes, " be im- 
mortal, especially when they be wrapped in the 
benefice of histories .... Other monuments, dis- 
tributed in divers changes, endure but for a short 
time or season ; but the virtue of history, diffused 



154 CAXTON. 

and spread by the universal world, hath time, which 
consumeth all other things, as conservatrice and 
keeper of her work." This is above his common 
strain; and the Chronicles which he printed, it 
must be allowed, are in parts as fabulous as his 
tales, recording, among other inhabitants of our 
globe, (i broods that be wonderfully shapen," of 
whom it is questionable whether they come from 
Adam and Noah, — Cyclopes, for instance, with 
one eye, and others who a defend themselves with 
the shadow of their feet from the heat of the 
sun." But he did his best, at any rate, in an age 
when his readers could get nothing more trust- 
worthy, and materials for authentic history were 
very scanty. In the chapter which he added to the 
translation of Trevisa's Polychronicon, embracing 
the century from 1357 to 1460, he complains that 
he had been able to get no books of authority save 
two which he names, and in them he found " right 
little matter " relating to those times. Froissart, 
Knyghton, Walsingham, and others, were then in 
manuscript, but either unknown to Caxton, or so 
scarce that he could not procure a copy to help 
him in his work. His Chronicles of England was 
the first printed history in which our countrymen 
could read any account of their ancestors; and 
Caxton's continuation of it to his own time, com- 



CAXTON. 155 

prising the first twenty years of Ed ward IV. 's reign, 
was, doubtless, as interesting to his contemporaries 
as the more doubtful records of an earlier age. 

One of Caxton's many translations w T as The 
Image or Mirror of the World, containing a great 
many very curious disquisitions about a great 
many different things. The following are some 
of the headings of the chapters : — " Wherefore 
God made and created the world," — "Where- 
fore and how the seven liberal arts were found, 
and of their order," — "How the four elements 
be set, and How the earth holdeth him right in 
the middle of the world," — " Of Nature, how 
she worketh, and what she is," — " What the 
roundness of the earth is, and why God made it 
round," — " Of the serpents, beasts, and precious 
stones of India," — " How the winds grow," — 
" Why men see not the sun by night," — "Why 
money was made," — " How the Scriptures and 
sciences were saved against the flood," — " Of the 
virtue of the heaven and the stars," — " Where- 
fore and why the earth was measured," — " How 
much the earth hath of height, how much of 
circuit, and how thick in the middle." 

JEsop's Fables, as might be expected, jEsop ant \ 
were among Caxton's contributions to the Chaucer - 
popular literature of his day. He translated 



156 CAXTON. 

them from the French, and adorned them with 
rude cuts, and then gave Englishmen the treasure 
which has amused and instructed succeeding ge- 
nerations in so many languages. They, like their 
neighbours, began to hear how birds and beasts 
might talk if they had but tongues, and to read 
the short, lively tales which are made up of the 
simplest incidents, yet full of that wisdom which 
the world has never ceased to want for so many 
centuries. Very precious must the gift have been 
to all classes when books of rational entertainment 
were so few ; great must have been the delight 
in many nurseries as the prints were examined, 
and the stories spelt out one by one ; and in that 
sad " first year of king Eichard the Third," while 
men talked in whispers of the strange disappear- 
ance of their youthful Prince, and rumours were 
rife that the new Monarch would not long be 
unchallenged on his throne, those pleasant tales, 
late published by Master Caxton, would find a 
ready welcome, doubtless, and be read with eager 
interest, in halls and mansions. 

Yet greater was the joy of Englishmen when 
they began to read in print the works of Chaucer. 
The commendations of our first great writer, 
scattered through Caxton's prefaces, are very in- 
teresting, and well worth quoting as specimens of 



CAXTON. 157 

early criticism. " In all his works," we read in 
one place, " he excelleth in mine opinion all other 
writers in our English ; for he writeth no void 
words, but all his matter is full of high and quick 

sentence, and of him all other have borrowed 

sith (since) and taken in all their well saying and 
writing." Elsewhere he bestows upon his author 
the high praise of te eschewing prolixity, and 
casting away the chaff of superfluity," and says 
that we " ought to give a singular laud unto that 
noble and great philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer, 
the which, for his ornate writing in our tongue, 
may well have the name of a laureat poet. For 
before that he by his labour embellished, ornated, 
and made fair our English, in this royaume was 
had rude speech and incongrue, as yet it appeareth 
by old books, which at this day ought not to have 
place nor be compared to his beauteous volumes 
and ornate writings." 

The Canterbury Tales were now to become the 
property of hundreds who could never hope to read 
them in manuscript. They contained entertainment 
for all classes, — stories grave and gay, — the ro- 
mantic and the satirical, — tales of love and chivalry 
followed by humorous descriptive pieces in which 
homely scenes, and the domestic manners of the 
times, were depicted to the life. Some of the stories 



158 CAXTON. 

should never have been written, their rather in- 
different wit being a poor apology for coarseness 
of the most offensive kind ; but the fact that a 
company of pilgrims, including a prioress and her 
attendant nuns, should be represented as listening 
to them without rebuke or shame, is, in itself, a 
curious specimen of the manners of the age. 
Others, which are tedious to a modern reader, 
were full of exciting interest, probably, to an 
older generation. At any rate, when books were 
scarce, and poetry in English yet scarcer, our 
fathers gave a welcome to every one of them ; 
and so Caxton had to print more than one edition 
of his well loved tales. 
Progress of ^ e praise which Caxton gives to 

the English Chaucer we cannot help thinking is 
language. 

partly Caxton's own. Considering 

what our language had been, — how diligently he 
laboured in the way of translation, — how few 
obsolete words we find in his writings as com- 
pared with those of a preceding age, — and what 
an engine he had for making his own English 
current among his countrymen, we can hardly 
doubt that he contributed a sroocl deal to fix the 
standard of our language when it was tending to 
a more permanent form. What progress was 
made in his time he has told us himself, with 



CAXTOX. 159 

much of detail, in one of the last prefaces that he 
printed; and, certainly, if he has not overstated 
the case, three centuries and a half can hardly 
have done so much in modifying our ordinary 
speech as the time that elapsed between his child- 
hood and old age. In his translation of the Story 
of the ^Eneid from the French, he tells us, that 
he was perplexed as to his choice of words, 
thinking some that he had employed too curious 
to be understood by the common people, especially 
as he had lately been charged by some of his 
friends to use " old and homely terms " in his 
translations. "And fain would I satisfy every 
man," he says, "and so to do, took an old book, 
and read therein ; and certainly the English was 
so rude and broad that I could not well under- 
stand it. And also my Lord Abbot of West- 
minster did shew to me late certain evidences 
written in old English for to reduce it into our 
English now used ; and certainly it was written 
in such wise that it was more like to Dutch than 
English. And certainly, our language now 
varieth far from that which was used and spoken 
when I was born ; for we Englishmen be born 
under the domination of the moon, which is never 
steadfast, but ever wavering, waxing one season, 
and waneth and decreaseth another season ; and 



160 CAXTON. 

that common English that is spoken in one shire 
varieth from another. In so much that in my 
clays happened that certain merchants were in a 
ship in Thames for to have sailed over the sea 
into Zealand, and for lack of wind they tarried at 
Foreland, and went to land for to refresh them ; 
and one of them, named Sheffelde, a mercer, came 
in to an house, and axed for meat, and especially 
he axed after egges ; and the good wife answered 
that she could speak no French ; and the mer- 
chant was angry, for he also could speak no 
French, but would have had eggs, and she under- 
stood him not. And then, at last, another said that 
he would have eyren ; then the good wife said she 
understood him well. Lo ! what should a man 
in thefe days now write ? egges or eyren f Cer- 
tainly, it is hard to please every man by cause of 
diversity and change of language. For, in these 
days, every man that is in any reputation in his 
country will utter his communication and matters 
in such terms that few men shall understand them. 
And some honest and great clerks have been with 
me, and desired me to write the most curious 
terms that I could find, and thus between plain, 
rude, and curious I stand abashed." Happily, 
Caxton's good sense prevailed ; as he was com- 
posing and printing for the whole reading public, 



CAXTOtf. 161 

and helping, undoubtedly, to form their style and 
speech, we may be thankful that he rejected the 
rude and the curious, and chose the -plain, " In 
my judgment," he adds, " the common terms, that 
be daily used, be lighter to be understood than the 
old and ancient English." 

The old man drew near his end, and ,, , 

' Popular reli- 

the indications are not few, among the gi° us works. 

notices of himself which he has left us, that 
he was looking on to it with a good hope. " He 
wrote like one," says his Biographer, Mr Lewis, 
" who lived in the fear of God, and was very 
desirous of promoting His honour and glory." 
His prefaces often conclude with a prayer, ex- 
pressing the pious wish that God will bless the 
reader in this world, and bring him safely to 
eternal joys. The preface to the Mirror of the 
World concludes thus : " Let us pray the Maker 
and Creator of all creatures, God Almighty, that 
at the beginning of this book it list Him, of His 
bounteous grace, to depart with us that we may 
learn of the same, — and that (what is) learned, 
to retain, — and that retained, to teach, — that 
-we may have perfect science and knowledge of 
God, that we may get thereby the health of our 
souls, and to be partners of His glory permanent, 
and without end." His Golden Legend, besides 

M 



162 CAXTON. 

recounting the virtues and miracles of many 3aints, 
from Saint Andrew to St. Albin, contains the 
" Stories of the Bible," and popular accounts of 
the Christian festivals. It was intended, doubt- 
less, for the use of those to whom the Latin, 
which was heard in the churches, was an unknown 
tongue. Wiclif's was a proscribed name, and 
the popular expositions of Scripture contained in 
his Postils, of which whole volumes still remain 
in manuscript, no man, who lived so near " my 
Lord Abbot of Westminster," could dare to 
print; but what was approved by ecclesiastical 
authorities he gladly sent abroad, and tells us 
plainly what his intent was in his preface to 
the Doctrinal of Sapience, translated from the 
French. He saw what a want there was of 
plain, useful teaching, such as peasants might un - 
derstand, and apply to the realities of common 
working life; and that want, besides supplying 
entertainment for knights and gentlemen, his 
press should supply. " This that is written in 
this little book," he says, " ought the priests to 
learn and teach to their parishes, and also it is 
necessary for simple priests that understand not 
the Scriptures ; and it is made for simple people, 
and put into English." Then follow some com- 
ments which may serve for our day as well as his, 



CAXTON. 163 

when " simple people " have to be instructed. 
" To hear examples," he says, " stirreth and 
moveth the people that be simple more to devo- 
tion than great authority of science." St. Austin 
taught in this fashion, he adds, and a greater 
than St. Austin, the Lord Himself. Besides, 
" the right reverend father and doctor Bede, 
hath told us in his History of a certain Bishop of 
Scotland, ' a subtle and great clerk,' who was 
sent into England to preach the word of God; 
but he used in his sermons ( subtle authorities,' 
and the people understood him not ; so he did no 
good, and went back again. Then came e another 
of less science,' the which was more plain, and 
used commonly in his sermons, examples and 
parables, by which he profited much more unto 
the erudition of the simple people than did that 
other." 

The best book of all for rich and The Bible 
poor, — the wisest and the plainest for prohibited, 
religious teaching, — Caxton might not print. 
Sir Thomas More assigns a curious reason why it 
would have been a hazardous service to take that 
work in hand. Wiclif 's translation, he says, was 
forbidden by Archbishop Arundel ; older transla- 
tions, to be sure, which the Church had never 
denounced, might lawfully be printed ; but then 

M 2 



164 CAXTON. 

" who should know, if the Holy Scriptures were 
now sent forth, whether the manuscript transla- 
tion, used as a copy, were made before Wiclif 's 
days or since ? " In the first case, all would be 
right ; in the second, error might be mixed with 
truth. In this state of things, writes the Chan- 
cellor, one of the Church's most devoted sons, 
" no printer would lightly be so hot as to put any 
Bible in print at his own charge, and then hang 
upon a doubtful trial " as to the time when the 
copy chanced to have been made. 
Last works When Caxton's years drew on towards 
and death, four-score, he translated and put to 
press the Art and Craft to knoiu well to die. We 
cannot doubt that he meant to be his own teacher, 
and had his thoughts busy with the sense, as well 
as the types, while he formed them into words of 
pious counsel. The confessions and prayers, 
which he printed for the dying, he felt were 
those which he must soon need, and his heart 
went along with the humblest of them as he 
laboured at his craft. On the 15th of June 
1490, the translation of this book was finished. 
Soon afterwards, probably, it was printed ; and 
in the accounts of the churchwardens of St. Mar- 
garet's, Westminster, ending in June 1492, we 
find an entry relating to four torches and the 



CAXTON. 165 

ringing of the bell " at the burying of William 
Caxton." He died, we may almost say, pen in 
hand ; for among Wynkyn de Worde's first pub- 
lications was one in which he has dutifully in- 
scribed his master's name, and recorded the sin- 
gular fact that there was no interval between his 
working time and his final rest. It was " trans- 
lated," he tells us, " out of French into English 
by William Caxton, of Westminster, late dead, 
and finished at the last day of his life." 

Honour to the kindly-natured, patient, hard- 
working old man who did so good a work for 
England! Very pleasant company are these 
BOOKS which then began to see the light, — always 
communicative, when we are willing to hear, 
like some sensible, well-bred friend, yet never 
forward, never captious, never overbearing, — full 
of information on all sorts of subjects, yet kindly 
letting us choose our own, and then telling us no 
more than we wish to know, — imparting some 
fresh truth continually to curious and eager 
listeners, or repeating the old with untiring pa- 
tience ao;ain and as;ain for the benefit of those 
who learn but slowly, — ready for a tete-a-tete if 
we wish for retirement, and making society more 
pleasant when they give out their store among 

M 3 



166 CAXTON. 

congenial friends, — never taking it amiss if we 
do not converse with them for weeks together, 
and, when we seek them once again, agreeable 
and free-spoken as before, — accommodating them- 
selves to all our moods in turn, giving us grave 
and edifying discourse when we desire instruc- 
tion, yet merry as the merriest when we are 
disposed for mirth. Who that loves a BOOK will 
not thank the man who sent forth such a goodly 
store, and helped to civilize our fathers by giving 
them some better employment for their leisure 
than war, the tournament, and the hunting field ? 



Further information respecting the first Printers 
will be found in the following works : — 

Biographie Universelle ; Articles Guttenberg, 
Fust, Schosffer, and Mentel. 

Conversations Lexicon ; Articles Printing and 
Gdttenberg. 

HlSTOIRE DE L'ORIGINE ET DES PREMIERS PrOGRES 

de lTmprimerie, a valuable compilation, printed at 
the Hague in 1740. 

The Origin of Printing, in Two Essays ; con- 
taining the substance of Dr. Middleton's Disser- 
tation and Meerman's Origines Typographic^. 

Cogan's Letters on the Rhine ; a lively de- 



CAXTON. 167 

scription of the Rhine country, published more than 
fifty years ago, when it was little known to English 
tourists, and containing a full and clear statement of 
the case between Haerlem and Mayence. 

Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities. Vol. I. 

Knight's Caxton ; one of his admirable shilling 
volumes. 



m 4 ; 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



NOTE (H). Page 107. 

Me. Knight, the celebrated publisher, was 
there, and England could not have sent a fitter 
representative. He has described the scene in 
his interesting Life of Caxton, the first of his 
shilling Weekly Volumes, itself a marvellous 
product of the press, whose early history it re- 
counts. He tells us that, while there was much 
of zeal and enthusiasm abroad, some listened with 
supreme indifference to what was passing so near 
them. A lady, whom he met in a steam-boat on 
his way, and who was learned in all the lore of 
German baths and watering-places, advised him 
by all means to avoid Mayence, " as a crowd of 
low people from all parts would be there to make 
a great fuss about a printer who had been dead 
two or three hundred years." — KnigMs Caxton, 
p. 81. 

NOTE (I). Page 108. 

I have made the best I can of a hard bit of 
Latin, — " Imprimis igitur characteribus literarum 
in tabulis ligneis per ordinem scriptis, formisque 
compositis, Vocabularium, Catholicon nuncupatum, 
impresserunt." Perhaps the exact meaning of the 
terms cannot be given without a sight of the rude 
materials with which the first printers exercised 



NOTES. 169 

their noble art. Others, evidently, have been 
puzzled besides me. Dr. Cogan translates it thus : 
" They first printed a vocabulary, called the 
Catholicon, with the characters of letters carved 
in wooden tablets in a series, and composed in 
forms;" and then adds (his correspondent, I sup- 
pose, being something of a scholar), " Do not 
you think this the proper translation ? " I cannot 
say I do. Compositis, I think, must agree with 
for mis. Mr. Knight gets over the difficulty by 
omitting the words, " compositis for mis " in his 
translation. The question is, What was the tabula, 
and what was the forma? And another very na- 
tural question is, What can scriptis mean ? Here 
was no writing surely, but a substitute for writing. 
If I might imitate the great critics who escape 
from a difficulty by hazarding a conjecture, I 
should say scriptis ought to be sculptis. , The 
letters must have been carved in wood, surely ; 
and the author, a little farther on, says that the 
characters were not " amovibiles de tabulis, sed 
INSCULPTI, sicut diximus." The tabula may have 
been the block on which a whole word was carved, 
and the forma a frame holding a line of words, or 
more. 



NOTE (K). Page 115. 

Mr. Knight quotes a fine passage from 
Mr. Hallam on the execution of this noble work : 
" It is a very striking circumstance that the high- 
minded inventors of this great art tried at the 
very outset so bold a flight as the printing an 
entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing 
success. It was Minerva leaping on the earth in 



170 CAXTON. 

her divine strength, and radiant armour, ready, at 
the moment of her nativity, to subdue and destroy 
her enemies.'* There is a current story about 
Fust taking some of these Bibles to Paris for 
sale, and offering them, in the first instance, for 
sixty crowns, whereas the price of a manuscript 
Bible on parchment of that size and quality would 
have been four or Jive hundred crowns. When 
the first buyers came to compare their copies, the 
exact correspondence of each with every other 
surprised and confounded them. Pages, words, 
letters, stops, all answered to pages, words, letters, 
stops elsewhere, without a single deviation or 
exception. Men wondered and paused ; the sale 
was less brisk than at first. Then Fust began to 
reduce the price ; he sold for forty crowns, — for 
thirty, — at last, for something much less. But 
soon there was a stir among the purchasers ; for 
some, who heard of their neighbours' good fortune, 
thought themselves wronged and plundered ; and 
bringing back their copies demanded the difference 
between the highest price and the lowest. Pust 
had to appeal to the Courts, says one story ; Fust 
fled away in disgrace says another ; at any rate, 
the secret was soon divulged, and printed books, 
like other things, began to have their market- 
price, and to invite numbers by their cheapness, 
who had no more thought hitherto of possessing 
a folio Bible than of possessing a princedom. The 
story is one of rather uncertain authority ; but it 
is highly probable that such scenes did take place 
between the years 1450 and 1460 ; and the price 
assigned to the manuscript copy, four or five 
hundred crowns, is no unlikely one. We may 
look upon the publication of the Sacred Volume 



NOTES. 171 

at so early a period as a pledge of the service 
which the press was going to render to religion ; 
for the scattering of God's word in the following 
century was worth more to the cause of the Re- 
formation than the favour of all its royal and noble 
patrons put together. 

NOTE (L). Page. 125. 

Among these are Meerman, in his Origines 
Typographic®, an able and learned work, and 
Dr. Cogan, in his Letters on the Rhine. They 
adopt the whole of Hadrian Junius's story, trust 
old Cornells, the bookbinder, and are as indignant 
as he was with the false workman who stole 
away with his master's tools. This man, they 
think, was not Guttenberg himself, but his elder 
brother, from whom he learnt to print with 
wooden letters. The proper name of the two 
brothers, it is said, was John Geinsfleische (it 
being by no means uncommon for members of 
the same family to have the same Christian name), 
and the younger was called Guttenberg for dis- 
tinction. It may have been, certainly, that one 
ran away from Holland in no creditable way, and 
the other harboured him ; but we have no proof 
of any sort to fasten such a charge upon them, 
and, in the absence of it, cannot conclude that 
either of them was a rogue. 



NOTE (M). Page 137. 

Some persons may be curious to see how Cax- 
ton spelt. This sentence, therefore, is given as 



172 CAXTON. 

it stood in the original black letter, printed by 
himself. 

" Whan I remembre that every man is bounden 
by the comandement and counceyl of the wyse 
man to eschewe slouthe and ydlenes, which is 
moder and nouryssher of vyces, and ought to put 
himself unto vertuous occupacion and besynesse, 
— than I, havynge no grete charge or occupacion, 
followyng the sayd counceyl, toke a Frenshe 
booke, and redde therein many straunge mer- 
vellous historyes, wherein I had grete pleasyr and 
delyte, as well for the novelte of the same as for 
the fayr langage of the Frenshe, whyche was in 
prose, so well and compendiously sette and 
wreton methonght I understood the sentence and 
substance of every mater." 



NOTE (X). Page 141. 

Some writers have made a great mystery of the 
concluding words of this passage. "Clearly," 
they say, " Caxton could not mean that the book 
was printed in twenty-four hours, for it consists 
of 778 folio pages. But then, what did he mean?" 
The true answer, manifestly? is that furnished by 
Mr. Knight. The old printer does not say he 
began and finished his work in the same day, but 
that each book was begun in one day, and finished 
in one day ; meaning that all the copies of the 
first sheet were struck off in a few hours at one 
time, and all the copies of the last sheet in a few 
hours at another time. 



NOTES. 173 



NOTE (O). Page 141. 

The rhymes are these. They occur in an 
English translation of Bartholomceus de Proprieta- 
tibus rerum printed at the Westminster press after 
Caxton's death ; — 

" And also of your chary te call to remembrance 

The soul of William Caxton first prynter of this boke 
In Latin tonge at Coleyn himself to advance 

That every well disposyd man may theron loke." 

The meaning of this stanza we have to make 
out as we can, without help from punctuation. 
Mr. Knight suggests two renderings. 

1. " William Caxton was the first printer of 
this book in Latin, at Cologne, and he printed it, 
as a commercial speculation, himself to advance, or 
profit." 

2. " William Caxton was the first printer of 
this book (meaning the English translation), and 
he printed it at Cologne for the purpose of ad- 
vancing or improving himself in the Latin tongue.'''' 

He prefers the first. A third, perhaps, might 
be proposed ; and then let the reader choose. 

" William Caxton was the first printer of this 
book in Latin, at Cologne, and he printed it to 
advance, or improve, himself (not in languages, 
but) in the Printing Art," which we know he did 
learn at Cologne. It seems hardly worth telling 
that a book was printed for gain, or in the way of 
business. But if, while Caxton was learning to 
print at Cologne, he worked at a Latin edition of 
Bartolomseus, and, among his reminiscences of 
by gone times, had mentioned this to Wynkyn de 
Worde while they, worked together at West- 



174 CAXTON. 

minster, we can easily suppose the book had a 
special interest in the scholar's eyes, and that, 
when he came to print an English edition, he 
might think the fact worth recording, and might 
be glad to couple it with a request that the reader 
would give one prayer " for the soul " of his 
honoured master. 

NOTE (P). Page 142. 

Dr. Dibclin, a very high authority in these 
matters, puts Caxton's earliest publication six 
years earlier, and Mr. Hallam follows him. It is 
adventurous to oppose such names ; but it would 
be presuming to make a contradictory statement 
without noticing theirs. The argument lies in a 
very narrow compass. There is a certain French 
edition of the History of Troy, which, from in- 
ternal evidence, seems to have been printed as 
early as 1467. It has no printer's name, but 
corresponds exactly with Caxton's English edition. 
The two were printed with the same types, say 
the learned, or with types cast in the same moulds. 
Therefore Caxton printed both. " We venture 
to doubt this," says Mr. Knight, and proceeds to 
give good reasons for his doubts. Caxton bought 
his types, no doubt, from the earlier printers, and 
what these types had printed before they became 
his, would, of course, correspond exactly with 
what they printed after he began to use them. 
The similarity proves nothing as to the identity of 
the workmen, only as to the identity of the tools. 
We learn that the English History of Troy, and 
the Game of Chess, are printed with the same 
types as those which Fust and Schceffer used at 



NOTES. 175 

Mentz ; yet Caxton certainly printed both. The 
obvious conclusion is that the types had changed 
masters ; and it is quite clear that the man who 
lought from the Germans, and sold to the English- 
man, may have been the printer of the French 
Tales of Troy. 

Nothing can be inferred with any positiveness, 
therefore, from the resemblance between the earlier 
and later editions in respect of typography ; and 
to us it seems quite plain that we must have 
positive and uncontradicted evidence to the effect 
that Caxton did print before 1470 in order to get 
rid of his own testimony collected from the two 
passages already quoted. In 1468, and again in 
1470 or 1471, he took to translating, he tells us, 
for lack of employment. He had been wandering 
in the interval from Bruges to Ghent, from Ghent 
to Cologne. At the later time he was still in the 
se'rvice of the Duchess of Burgundy. All this is 
completely inconsistent with his having been a 
printer from 1467. The whole air and carriage 
of the man, as he depicts himself at that period, is 
of another sort. He might work at the press, 
and be a dabbler in literature, too, as he after- 
wards was ; but, from the day that Caxton's 
second life began, he can hardly have said that 
he had " none other thing to do " but to translate 
romances. 



COLUMBUS 



HIS FORERUNNERS AND PATRONS. 



N 



PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 179 



CHAPTER V. 

PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES — FERDINAND AND 
ISABELLA. 

If the fifteenth century had been signalized by 
the Invention of Printing, and nothing else, it 
might well have ranked with the most remarkable 
aeras which the world has seen. But it has other 
distinctions besides. It was the age of mari- 
time discovery, — all former triumphs over the 
sea being completely distanced by what was done 
between its beginning and its close. At the 
earlier period no European had sailed along the 
coast of Africa farther than the 27 th degree of 
North latitude; at the later, Vasco de Gama 
had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to India ; 
Columbus had crossed the Atlantic to America 
three times ; and an army of adventurers, follow- 
ing in their track and envying their fame, were 
scattering themselves, East and West, over the 
wide Ocean, and connecting Europe by new ties 
with the other three quarters of the globe. 
As compared with the present relative . 

positions of our own country and some Henry of 
. „ . . . Portugal. 

others in respect or maritime power, it 

N 2 



180 PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 

is curious to see who were the leaders in this great 
movement, — to find Englishmen no where men- 
tioned, and the boldest navigators sailing from 
Venice, Genoa and Portugal. The last-named 
country took the lead, and Prince Henry, a 
younger son of John the First, must rank with the 
two great explorers whom we have named as having 
made the sea a highway for commerce. He was 
no seaman himself; but for nearly fifty years he 
urged on the race of discovery, helping to turn 
the minds of thoughtful men throughout Europe 
to the great subject which filled his own soul. All 
through that dreary period of our own history 
and the history of our nearest neighbours, — - 
when Joan of Arc was growing up, — during the 
long minority and troubled reign of Henry the 
Sixth, — while France was half won by the Eng- 
lish, and wholly lost, — from the commencement 
of the War of the Roses almost to its close, — 
this noble Prince was devoting money and time 
and heart to his favourite studies and projects. 
He had his dwelling on the shores of the Atlantic, 
near Cape St. Vincent; and there, with an un- 
explored expanse of ocean continually before his 
eyes, he dreamed of new conquests to be won 
under his auspices which should bring honour 
to his country, and extend the boundaries of 



PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 181 

Christendom. His companions were men of learn- 
ing who knew what books could teach of the 
world's size and shape, or seamen who had wan- 
dered as far as men dared then to venture in 
unknown seas. 

To the African coast his researches African coast 
were naturally directed; for he had ex P lored - 
shared the danger and the glory of his father's 
expedition against Barbary ; and from Moorish 
guests, in later days, he had received glowing 
accounts of the wealth which was hidden in the 
interior of that vast continent. Cape Non, long 
the southern boundary of European enterprize, 
had been passed by some of Kins* 

-x i i i i i ° A. D. 1412. 

Johns naval commanders; but a sail 
of fifty leagues had brought them to Cape Boja- 
dor, and from thence they had returned with the 
report that its rocky cliffs, projecting far into the 
sea, presented a barrier too formidable to pass. 
Still the Prince longed to penetrate beyond it, 
and fitted out a vessel for that express object ; 
but it was carried out to sea by a gale, and lighted 
on Porto Santo, more than three hundred miles 
from shore. Pleased with the discovery, which 
fell in with his temper and genius, Henry began 
to colonize, and sent out settlers in the following 
year, who, after noticing for some time together 

N 3 



182 PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 

an object in the distant horizon, which seemed 

always to keep the same position, made 

sail for it, and landed on Madeira. 

The fruitful little island, which still remains in 

the hands of the Portuguese, became a thriving 

colony. The vine and the sugar-cane yielded a 

rich return to the cultivator, and a traffic grew 

up which taught men to navigate the open sea 

more boldly. The formidable Cape 
A. D. 1433. . J „ x 

Bojador was passed, and Cape Blanco 

and Cape de Verde were reached in succession, — 
the latter being within fifteen degrees of the 
Equator. The dreaded Torrid Zone was found 
not to be destructive of human life ; and as point 
after point was gained, and the interminable 
shore was seen stretching yet farther to the South, 
curiosity was excited; new hopes were raised, 
and speculations about reaching India by circum- 
navigating Africa became favourite ones with 
many inquiring minds. 

Before Prince Henry's death in 1473, the 
Cape de Yerde Islands were discovered, three 
hundred miles from the cape of that name, which 
is the western extremity of Africa; and the 
Azores, nine hundred miles from Portugal, and yet 
farther from the southern continent. Triumphs 
such as these were greatly surpassed by the men 



PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 183 

of the next age ; but to the Prince belonged the 
credit of kindling the spirit which sent them forth. 
Columbus himself may have had his noble aspira- 
tions fed and strengthened by what he heard of 
the Portuguese successes. Henry had been politic 
enough, moreover, to get the Pope on his side. It 
would be his endeavour, he said, to carry the light 
of the Gospel into new lands, and gather bar- 
barous tribes into the fold of the Church, where- 
ever God should prosper his enterprizes ; and on 
the faith of this promise, sincerely made and kept, 
a grant was made to the Portuguese of all countries 
discovered by them between Cape Non and the 
Indian Continent. In those palmy days of the 
Papacy, pretensions utterly monstrous for their 
absurdity were acquiesced in by the European 
powers as a part of the international law of 
Christendom ; and, accordingly, this gift was re- 
cognized by them as valid. 

John II. followed in the track of _ 

Progress 

his great uncle, Prince Henry. En- towards 
couraged by reports, partly true and 
partly fabulous, about the wealth of distant king- 
doms in the East, he became more anxious than 
ever to reach India by sailing along the African 
coast. The Gulf of Guinea was explored ; the 
Equator was left behind; the constellations of 

N 4 



184 PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 

the southern sky shone out with dazzling bril- 
liancy ; farther and farther the Portuguese cap- 
tains penetrated, and brought home word that 
Ptolemy was mistaken as to the shape of Africa, 
for, instead of widening as they advanced, the 
shore contracted itself, and retreated towards the 
East. An expedition was fitted out, 

A.D. I486. L 

therefore, with special orders to solve 
the problem, and to sail past Africa eastward, if 
an outlet could be found. The commander, Bar- 
tholomew Diaz, passed the Cape of Good Hope, 
and reached the Great Fish River, some hundred 
miles beyond it : he was, in fact, on the high 
road to India, the long-wished-for goal of Por- 
tuguese explorers ; but shattered vessels and 
furious storms, combined with a mutinous crew, 
compelled him to return. For a time nothing 
more was done. Diaz's report was formidable 
even to the bold and enterprizing. The long- 
sought southern promontory, which we know by 
its fairer name, had been called by him the Cape 
of Storms, and for ten years it was never passed 
again. 

In the meantime, however, the subject did not 
sleep. Information was being gathered from 
other quarters, and curiosity was quickened as 
fresh reports came in of what travellers had seen 



PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 185 

or heard in the newly-explored parts of Africa, 
and in the far distant East. Embassies were sent 
in search of Prester John, a fabulous Christian 
prince, supposed to reign in Abyssinia or Ethio- 
pia, or somewhere else, about whom Marco Polo 
and other early travellers had written, and who, 
in this stage of European discovery, was often 
hunted for, but never found. Covillam, a noble- 
man of distinction, dispatched on an exploring 
mission just about the time of Diaz's return to 
Portugal, went through Egypt and Arabia to 
India, visited Calicut, Goa, and other cities on 
the Malabar coast, and, having crossed to the 
western shore of Africa, found his way to Abys- 
sinia, where he became an influential person at 
court and spent the remainder of his days. The 
result of his enquiries was transmitted to Portu- 
gal, and found favour there. The Cape of Good 
Hope, Covillam reported, was well known to na- 
vigators of the Indian seas. At this point, there- 
fore, the two tracks met by which vessels had 
steered eastward from Europe, and westward from 
the ports of Asia. What hindrance could there 
be to a voyage from one continent to the other ? 
What was wanting but sound vessels, sufficient 
provisions, and stout hearts, to effect a maritime 
communication between Portugal and the untold 
wealth of India ? 



186 PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 

India Then came the crowning triumph in 

reached. ^his memorable progress from Cape 
Non to India. Emmanuel succeeded his cousin 
John, and encouraged by favourable reports from 
so many quarters, determined to spare no pains 
to win for his country the commerce of the East. 
So another expedition was fitted out, consisting of 
three vessels, which sailed for the Cape of Good 
Hope in July 1497 ; and Vasco de Gama was 
selected for his skill and courage to conduct the 
enterprize. The trust was faithfully discharged. 
Advancing in the track pointed out by his fore- 
runners, he sailed round the southern coast of 
Africa, left the Great Fish River behind him, and 
then sailing northwards, cast anchor opposite the 
city of Mozambique in the following March. 
Having explored the coast as far as Melinda, 
2000 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, he 
turned his prow eastward across the Indian Ocean, 
and a run of three and twenty days realized all 
his hopes and dreams by bringing him to Calicut, 
then the great mart of commerce in the East. 

Such was the career of discovery which occu- 
pied eighty years of Portuguese history, — and a 
noble career it was for a nation not ranking with 
the first-rate European kingdoms in wealth or 
power. Now Spain was to rival and surpass her 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 187 

neighbour ; for, before Yasco de Gama sailed n 
his memorable voyage, Columbus had returned 
from America ; and the marvellous tales from the 
far West threw into the shade what had been 
done by Prince Henry and his worthy successors 
in another field. 



Such was the preparatory work done for Co- 
lumbus on the seas. The course of events which 
seated Ferdinand and Isabella on the throne 
of Spain, and made them powerful enough to 
carry forward his great enterprize is full of in- 
terest ; and a brief account of it will fitly intro- 
duce the narrative which follows. 

In the year 1454, John II., King Isabella and 
of Castile, died, leaving two sons, her brothers. 
Henry and Alfonso, and a daughter, Isabella, 
scarcely three years old. He left behind him a 
kingdom which embraced about three fourths of 
modern Spain, the excepted portions being the 
Moorish kingdom of Granada at the southern 
extremity, comprised within a circuit of some five 
hundred miles, — Navarre, less than half as large, 
lying under the Pyrenees, — and Aragon, con- 
taining the province of that name, along with 
Catalonia and Valencia, and shut in between 



188 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

Castile, the Pyrenees, and the Mediterranean. 
His successor, Henry IV., speedily disgusted his 
subjects by his feebleness of character and habits 
of reckless extravagance, combined with oppres- 
sive exactions, and submission to unworthy fa- 
vourites. A hostile party w T as formed, headed 
by the Marquis of Villena, a man of great talents 
and of a restless intriguing spirit, and his uncle 
the Archbishop of Toledo ; and after some years 
of smothered indignation or outspoken remon- 
strance, — when royal pledges had been given and 
broken, and the national feeling was at last out- 
raged by Henry's recognition of his wife's daugh- 
ter, born in adultery, as the heiress to the throne, 
— in the year 1465, a formal deposition took 
place with more of ceremony than belongs com- 
monly to revolutionary movements. A scaffold 
was erected in an open plain ; and there, upon a 
chair of state, clad in sable robes, sat an e^gy of 
King Henry, crowned and sceptred. His crimes 
were read out, and forfeiture of the crown de- 
clared to be their rightful punishment ; then pre- 
lates and nobles stripped the figure of the royal 
insignia, one by one, and concluded by rolling the 
bare image from the throne to the dust. 

Henry's younger brother, Alfonso, a youth of 
eleven, was proclaimed King ; but a large party 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 189 

still adhered to Henry ; and for a time the strange 
spectacle was seen of two rival courts and rival 
governments in the same kingdom, Then came 
civil war, — a pitched battle with a 

1 A.D. 1468. 

doubtful issue, — the sudden death of 
Alfonso, — confusion and bewilderment among 
the insurrectionary leaders, — and, at last, a reso- 
lution to rally round the Infanta Isabella, and 
make her Queen by the people's choice. This il- 
lustrious Princess had just completed her seven- 
teenth year, but had a maturity of understanding 
and a force of character, beyond her years. Trained 
in privacy under the eye of a watchful mother, 
she had imbibed lessons of piety which governed 
her future life, and now that she was tempted on 
the side of ambition, she had her decision and her 
answer ready. Nothing should induce her, she 
said, to occupy the throne which was her bro- 
ther's by lawful right. She would do what she 
could to reconcile contending parties, but would 
not help to perpetuate dissensions which had in- 
flicted such misery on her country. The confe- 
derates, deprived of a chief, had no hope of making 
head against Henry, and terms were agreed upon 
which promised immunity to the rebels, and put 
Isabella's title as presumptive heiress to the throne 
beyond dispute. 



190 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

Thus splendidly endowed, Isabella did 

Her suitors l . ' 

and mar- not want for suitors, lne King ot Ara- 

nage * gon for his son, Ferdinand, — Edward I Y. 

of England, and Louis XL of France, for their 
respective brothers, — the King of Portugal for 
himself, — all pressed her in turn ; and, like ladies 
who have kingdoms for their dower, she seemed 
likely to have a husband given to her for some 
political object. But her delicacy and her pride 
alike revolted against coercion where her happi- 
ness and her duty were concerned; and threatened 
violence on her brother's part was met with deter- 
mined spirit on hers. For his own selfish objects 
he favoured the old King of Portugal ; for her 
people's sake, as for her own, she preferred the 
voung Prince of Aragon ; and when imprisonment 
in the fortress of Madrid was hinted at, she took 
counsel with some of the nobles of Castile, nego- 
tiated her own treaty of marriage, and placed 
herself by a hasty flight beyond the reach of 
Henry's unscrupulous advisers. Having reached 
Valladolid, where the citizens were devoted to her 
interests, she sent a message to Ferdinand, claim- 
ing his advice and support ; and assuring him that 
a speedy union had become necessary to her safety. 
The Prince, though the most favoured of her 
lovers, was unhappily the poorest, and could bring 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 191 

no army to her rescue. There was insurrection 
in his father's little kingdom ; and neither soldiers 
could be spared for his body-guard, nor money for 
a royal bridal. He was driven, therefore, to take 
his measures rapidly and secretly. If his journey 
were publicly known, Henry would not scruple to 
interrupt it by violence ; so he travelled with half 
a dozen attendants disguised as merchants, and, 
when his party stopped for refreshment, took 
charge of the mules, and did the servant's part at 
table. At Valladolid he found his mistress, the 
Archbishop of Toledo, and a party of Isabella's de- 
voted friends, who gladly gave him homage as 
their future sovereign ; and there, in humble state, 
money being borrowed to defray the Q ct 19 
necessary expences, the marriage took 1469 - 
place which laid the foundation of the great 
Spanish monarchy. 

The hero of this romance was in his eighteenth 
year, and the heroine a year older, — he, not 
spoiled by luxury, but active and temperate in his 
habits, wise and experienced beyond his years, 
handsome, too, and endowed with all knightly 
accomplishments, — she, adorned with graces, and 
ennobled by virtues, which the Spanish writers love 
to paint in the most glowing colours. Isabella 
the Catholic she was styled by her own age in 



192 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

token of her devotion to the Church and the Pope ; 
but her religion was of that higher kind which 
purifies and elevates the character, and it kept her 
safely through the temptations of prosperous and 
adverse fortune. Her later career was full of 
honour ; but at the time we speak of, and for 
many years afterwards, she led a troubled and 
anxious life. Wisely, therefore, had she chosen 
for her friend and companion one on whose judg- 
ment she could rely for aid, and whose tried affec- 
tion would be worth more to a heart like hers 
than all the splendours of royalty. 

Henry's death, five years after the 

Distracted J J 

state of marriage of Isabella, was followed by 

pam ' a protracted civil war, which endan- 

gered her throne, but called forth qualities which 
made her dearer than before to every loyal Cas- 
tilian. The King of Portugal took up the cause 
of Joanna, the bastardized daughter of Henry's 
wife, and, after going through the form of betroth- 
ment with the lady, who, in respect of years, 
might have been his daughter, gathered his armies 
to enforce her claim. So sudden was the inva- 
sion, — so little expected this hostile attempt from 
one who was Isabella's own suitor but yesterday, 
— that at the beginning of the war not a thousand 
horse could be mustered to oppose his march. 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 193 

The nation, too, was distracted and impover- 
ished; the troops were ill-appointed and half- 
disciplined ; the civil functionaries left to the 
Queen by her reckless predecessor were feeble 
and incompetent ; some of her old friends turned 
against her, and became bitter enemies, including 
the Archbishop of Toledo, the first dignitary in 
Spain. 

In the midst of distresses like these T . ., , 

Isabellas 

Isabella never lost heart or hope. She noble qua- 
trusted in God and her people ; and did 
her own part with exemplary prudence and with 
unfailing energy. When things were at the 
worst, she hardly gave herself rest or sleep. The 
night was sometimes spent in dictating dispatches, 
and the day in rapid visits to garrison towns, in 
which the allegiance of her subjects was most 
doubtful. All was done that wisdom and courage 
could do to maintain her own rights and the in- 
dependence of her country. While the issue was 
doubtful, Alfonso offered peace, on condition of 
having Galicia and two frontier towns ceded to 
Portugal ; but to such terms Isabella would not 
listen. With money, if necessary, she would 
buy for her country a release from the scourge of 
war ; but Castile was given her in trust to keep 
o 



194 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

and rule, and not an inch of its territory would 
she consent to resign. 

Victory and ^ last a v i ctoi T> gained near Toro, 
peace. i n the year 1476, gave a decided su- 

periority to Isabella, and fixed the wavering 
allegiance of many of the nobles. But for three 
years longer the contest continued ; and then the 
war between rival Princesses was terminated by 
the intervention of lady-peacemakers. An In- 
fanta of Portugal, sick at heart for the miseries 
inflicted in both countries, and closely allied both 
to Alfonso and Isabella, sought a meeting with 
the latter in a frontier town, and in less time than 

is commonly given to such negotiations 
A. D. 1479. %.? ° 

the terms of peace were agreed on. 

Alfonso was to renounce his bride, the Pope's 

dispensation for the marriage being withdrawn ; 

Joanna was to resign her pretensions to the 

throne; and, strangely enough, having lost a 

lover who might have been her father, it was 

stipulated that this ill-fated lady should wed 

Isabella's son just born, or retire into a convent. 

She preferred the latter course, and lived to see 

the grandson of Isabella occupy a far more 

splendid throne than that of which she had. a 

glimpse in her own youthful dreams. 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 195 

Five years of war had desolated _ ., , 
J t Eapid acl- 

Spain. Five years of peace followed ; vancement 
and it may be questioned whether the 
history of any nation presents a spectacle of such 
rapid progress in a much more lengthened period. 
Order succeeded to confusion ; the royal revenue 
had increased sixfold ; the grandees of the kingdom 
were no longer permitted to reign like petty tyrants 
in their own domain ; the people, in town and 
country, learnt to look to the throne as the foun- 
tain of justice, and rallied round it with devoted 
loyalty; ecclesiastical encroachments were firmly, 
yet temperately resisted # ; above all, the courts 
were purified, and the laws administered so as to 
command respect and confidence. The judge's 
decree, say the Spanish writers, began to be more 
respected than the warrior's sword; the roads 
were swept of banditti; fortresses, which had 
been the strongholds of titled plunderers, were 
thrown down; the knight and squire, who had 
oppressed the labouring people without mercy, 
felt that a stronger arm was upon them which 
they could not resist. 

Isabella herself was the spring; of 
. . . . Isabella's 

this improved administration. Her personal 

desire to have her throne established m uence# 

* See NOTE (Q). 
o 2 



196 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 

in righteousness gave vigour and directness to all 
measures of reform. Her wise economy, which 
never degenerated into meanness, but was varied 
by noble munificence when the occasion called for 
it, gave her kingdom a flourishing exchequer 
•without any harsh exactions. Her Castilian sub- 
jects every where loved to connect her name with 
their new-found blessings : while those, who came 
within the sphere of her personal influence, gave 
her the tribute of a warmer and livelier admi- 
ration. The Court, which had been a sink of 
pollution, became a safe dwelling-place for inno- 
cence and modesty; and lessons learnt in the 
palace by the future mothers of her nobles helped 
to form a far better race than the proud and law- 
less men who had often proved themselves too 
strong both against Prince and people.* 

In 1481 the last war with the Moors began, 
which lasted ten years, and ended in their over- 
throw and expulsion. It was raging when Co- 
lumbus first sought the Court of Spain, and 
Granada was taken just before he sailed on his 
first voyage. Thus, at the same time, the whole 
of Spain, with the very slight exception of Na- 
varre, became consolidated into one kingdom, and 
a new empire sprang up in the West to increase 

* See NOTE (K). 



FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 197 

its wealth and fame. Yery different was the 
Spain of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second 
from that which Ferdinand and Isabella looked 
upon as their future inheritance when money was 
borrowed for their wedding festivities at Valla- 
dolid; and the different stages of its growth till 
it became the rival of the foremost nations of 
Europe, and the dread of many of them, form an 
important chapter in Modern History. 



o 3 



198 COLUMBUS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



COLUMBUS. 



Sometime in the early part of the year 1486, a 
stranger stopped at the door of a Franciscan con- 
vent, near the town of Palos, on the western coast 
of Spain, and begged of the porter some bread 
and water for his son. They were journeying 
on foot to a neighbouring town, where some 
members of their family resided, and the length 
of the way had exhausted the younger traveller. 
As they stood and refreshed themselves with the 
humble cheer which was readily granted them, 
the guardian of the convent, one Juan Perez de 
Marchena passed by, and was attracted by the 
noble appearance of the stranger, and by his 
foreign accent. Conversation ensued, and was 
followed by the offer of hospitality on the friar's 
part. The convent stood upon a height, and 
commanded a view of the great Atlantic Ocean. 
The possibility of crossing it was canvassed ; and 
some discussion ensued as to the countries and 
races which might be found on the opposite shore. 



COLUMBUS. 199 

The traveller, it seemed, was one who had medi- 
tated deeply on the world's size and shape. He 
had conceived the notion that Europe and Africa, 
and the known parts of Asia, did not comprize 
the whole of the solid portion of the globe, but 
that new countries might be discovered by stretch- 
ing boldly to the West. He talked like one who 
was bold enough to venture into unknown seas, 
and test the truth of his theories by actual expe- 
riment ; but to practical skill he added scientific 
acquirements of a high order, and showed himself 
master of all the learning that bore upon his 
favourite subject. 

The wayfaring man was Columbus, and it 
chanced that in Marchena he found an intelligent 
and willing listener. A physician of Palos, 
Garcia Fernandez, was invited to their confer- 
ences, a man of some scientific reputation, and 
one Pinzon, also, who belonged to a wealthy 
family, and was himself a bold and experienced 
navigator. To this little party the great explorer 
announced his hopes and plans. They rested not 
on fancies and conjectures, but on specious rea- 
sonings and solid facts. The records of ancient 
and modern travellers had been searched and 
sifted. With the stores which were gathered 
from books he had compared the observations of 

o 4 



200 COLUMBUS. 

living men. He could tell of what had been seen 
at Porto Santo, at Madeira, on the Azores and 
Canary Islands. Trunks of trees, evidently not 
of European growth, and reeds of an immense 
size, of which some were preserved by the Xing 
of Portugal, had been drifted on those shores by 
westerly currents; dead bodies, too, belonging 
to some unknown race, had been found on one of 
them; and whence could these come but from 
some undiscovered country beyond the Atlantic ? 

When Columbus's tale was finished, other evi- 
dence was sought after. The weather-beaten 
pilots of Palos were sent for and examined ; facts 
noted by one and another of them were brought 
together, and pointed to the same conclusion. 
Then the lofty enthusiasm of Columbus painted 
his darling project in the most glowing colours, 
as full of hope to Christendom, and promising 
lasting glory to Spain, if her rulers would supply 
the necessary complement of ships and men. 

In the common discourse of Columbus there 
was the elevation of genius and the fire of elo- 
quence. The solemn earnestness of his tone 
marked the sincerity of his convictions, and gave 
force and weight to all that he said. So his 
hearers listened, wondered, and believed. Mar- 
chena, especially, was caught by the grandeur of 



COLUMBUS. 201 

the scheme, and charged Columbus to go straight 
to Cordova, where the Court was then residing, 
and lay his plans before Ferdinand and Isabella ; 
at the same time giving him a letter of introduc- 
tion to Talavera, the Queen's confessor, and pro- 
mising to take charge of his son till his return. 

A few words will Suffice for the Early history 

previous career of Columbus. His of Columbus. 
father was a woolcomber at Genoa ; and at a very- 
early age, probably, there were some indications 
of genius ; as he studied for a short time at the 
University of Pavia, and there acquired a good 
knowledge of Latin, besides the rudiments of 
geometry, astronomy and navigation. But his 
passion was for the sea ; so at fourteen his nau- 
tical life began ; and he grew up to manhood 
amid the toils and dangers of active service be- 
tween the great ports of the Mediterranean. 

In the commercial enterprizes, as well as the 
maritime wars, of that age, there was abundant 
occupation for an active mind and a fearless spirit. 
The Italian states were continually battling with 
each other ; and petty fleets, laden with precious 
freights, had to be attacked or defended. Pira- 
tical expeditions were not unfrequent, and men of 
reputation did not disdain to serve in them for 



202 COLUMBUS. 

hire. The common enemy, too, the Mussulman, 
was braved in his strongholds, or pursued, like a 
trespasser, upon the high seas. In expeditions of 
this sort Columbus served a rough apprenticeship, 
and a better, perhaps, could not have been found 
for the enterprize which became the business of 
his life. 

Of this period scarcely any thing is known in 
detail, for Columbus has left no record of it; 
and early historians, who wrote to exalt the glory 
of Spain in connection with his great achievement, 
took no account of what had been done while he 
was training up for it in other lands. One inci- 
dent remains, told by himself, no doubt, to his 
son Fernando, that while serving with a relative, 
who was a noted corsair, and had a name so terrible 
as to be the bugbear of Moorish nurseries, he 
was once engaged in a desperate action not far 
from Cape St. Vincent. This man, with his little 
squadron, attacked four Venetian galleys richly 
freighted. There was no manoeuvring, but hard 
fighting between the hostile decks, while each 
ship was fastened by grappling-irons to its anta- 
gonist. Columbus's vessel, or the one with which 
he was engaged, took fire, and both crews were 
compelled, for safety, to plunge into the sea. He 
seized an oar, and with the help of that, being a 



COLUMBUS. 203 

man of great physical strength and an expert 
swimmer, escaped to shore two leagues off. So 
the story runs; and, if it be strictly true, we 
may well acknowledge, with the dutiful narrator, 
that " God gave him strength, and preserved him 
for greater things." 

From this unpromising school Columbus 
emerged, not only a hardy seaman, but with 
many scholar-like acquirements, — of a temper 
calm and patient, yet full of energy, — with aims 
and motives, moreover, w T hich elevated him far 
above the crowd of money-seeking or danger- 
lovinp; adventurers. In 1470 we first •■ . 

° , . _ . Arrives in 

hear of him in Portugal. During his Portugal, 

residence there, considering its situation, 
and the known incidents of his story, it is highly 
probable that he began to speculate concerning the 
western boundary of the Atlantic, and to dream of 
lands beyond it. Prince Henry was then alive, 
and the fame of his discoveries was quite enough 
to attract a man like Columbus, and to make 
him wish for some share in the exploring expe- 
ditions which were pushing the boundaries of the 
known world yet farther to the South and West. 
At Lisbon he became acquainted with a noble 
lady whom he courted and married, the daughter 
of one of the Prince's band of distinguished cap- 



204 COLUMBUS. 

tains. He resided for a time with his mother-in- 
law, and from her he received, what was more 
precious in his eyes than a marriage-portion of 
gold and jewels, the journals and charts of her 
deceased husband. His wife's sister was married 
to a man of similar genius and tastes with his 
own, who had once been governor of Porto Santo, 
the island from which Madeira had been seen and 
discovered; at that outpost of the world of dis- 
covery Columbus himself resided for a time ; and 
the talk of the two brothers, when they met, 
would naturally turn upon all that had been 
done, and all that might yet be done, in the way 
of discovery on the element with which they 
were both familiar. Facts were collected from 
many quarters, which seemed to speak the same 
language as to far off countries in the West ; and 
to these were added floating rumours of distant 
islands sometimes dimly seen by navigators who 
had been driven by storms beyond the usual 
track. During this period Columbus was em- 
ployed sometimes in voyages to Guinea; and 
when at home eked out his scanty income by 
drawing maps and charts for sale. Something 
was saved, however, from his little store to assist 
his old father at Genoa, and to advance the edu- 
cation of his younger brother. 



COLUMBUS. 205 

By 1474 it is certain that the theory His t i ieory 
of Columbus had assumed a definite and plans. 
shape. Reflection, study, observation, and the 
report of many witnesses, all brought him to the 
same conclusion. The earth he assumed to be a 
globe, of which the surface was divided between 
land and sea, and which might be travelled round 
from East to West, men on opposite sides of the 
sphere, of course, standing foot to foot. Mea- 
suring the known portions of the globe eastward 
from the Cape de Verde Islands to the extremest 
point of Asia, he concluded that about two-thirds 
of the whole circumference were comprized within 
those limits ; and the remaining third, partly oc- 
cupied by land and partly by water, had yet to 
be traversed. The land he supposed to be, not 
another continent, as he found it, but Asia, 
known or unknown ; and already he had formed 
a determination, if ships could be procured, to 
sail across the intervening ocean in quest of India. 
As the hope grew up in his mind of finding new 
lands, peopled with strange, probably barbarous, 
races, he began to look at the project through the 
medium of his strong religious feelings. Christ's 
name would be magnified, and the blessings of 
redemption extended, possibly, to nations of ido- 
laters. He thought himself called to a mission 



206 COLUMBUS. 

of peace, and longed to bring fresh provinces 
beneath the Church's rule. In this strain he 
loved to speak of his great design ; and when he 
invited the attention of princes, or discoursed 
about it to learned men, there was in his air, and 
style, and tones, something of the prophet's man- 
ner, announcing the high purposes of heaven. 
Correspon- In his hopes and plans he was en- 

Toscanelli. couraged by a learned Florentine, 
a.d. 1474. Toscanelli, with whom he corresponded. 
" Four thousand miles from Lisbon," he said, 
" must bring you to Mangi and Cathay, — to the 
Spice Islands, which send their perfume across the 
ocean, — to Cipango, with its hidden stores of 
precious stones, — and to the palace of the great 
Khan, covered with tiles of gold." Such were 
some of the wonders described by Marco Polo, 
the celebrated Venetian traveller, who had pene- 
trated to the remotest parts of Asia a century 
before. The names here mentioned were for 
ever in Columbus's mind throughout his earlier 
voyages; and the map sent to him by Tosca- 
nelli, which travelled with him when he first sailed 
across the Atlantic, exhibits India where America 
ought to be, with islands, small and great, of un- 
known names, scattered over the intervening 
ocean. Cipango figures very prominently; a nut- 



COLUMBUS. 207 

meg forest is put clown among its supposed pro- 
ducts; and Syrens are commemorated as some- 
times visiting its shores. 

Years went by, and reflection did Overtures to 
but root this theory more strongly in Portu g al - 
the mind of Columbus ; but there was no hope of 
its ever coming to any practical result till some 
European potentate should put an exploring 
armament at his disposal. Portugal had been 
the patron of similar projects, and seemed likely 
to become so again when John the Second, on his 
accession to the throne, in the year 1481, talked 
of following up the career of discovery so nobly 
begun by his great uncle, Prince Henry. So to 
Portugal he went, and told his tale to the King 
himself, who referred the whole matter, first, to a 
body of learned men, and afterwards to his own 
council. Both reported the scheme to be utterly 
extravagant ; but John, who had a hankering 
after the reputation of a discoverer, borrowed the 
maps and charts of Columbus, and, having fitted 
out a vessel at the Cape de Yerde Islands, 
charged the pilot to sail boldly in the track which 
they indicated till he came to land. Faith and 
courage to venture very far were naturally want- 
ing in men who were thus driven forth into 
unknown seas: they returned with an ill report; 



208 COLUMBUS. 

the monarch lost character without gaining his 
prize ; and Columbus, threatened with an arrest 
for debt, and disgusted with an act of baseness 
which might have robbed him of his honest fame, 
ad 1484 left Portugal after three years of weary 
expectation. 
It is rumoured, but not very clearly ascertained, 
that overtures were next made to Genoa and 
Venice, and rejected by both of them. To Eng- 
land he certainly dispatched his brother Bartho- 
lomew to solicit the countenance of Henry the 
Seventh for his great undertaking. But up to 
the time of his appearance at Palos, he had found 
favour with no European Potentate. Fifty years 
of a laborious and anxious life were already spent, 
and his mission still was to "beg his way from 
court to court, while he offered to princes the 
discovery of a world." 

In the little sea-port town of Spain, we have 
seen, he found listeners and friends ; and encou- 
raged by their approbation, with hopes some- 
what revived, he sought : the Court of Spain. 
Columbus at At Cordova he found King and 
Cordova. Queen, courtiers and soldiers, laymen 

and ecclesiastics, all occupied with an intended 
attack on Granada ; and a solitary, unfriended 



COLUMBUS. 209 

stranger, asking for assistance towards what looked 
a romantic enterprize, was little likely to find 
favour, or obtain a hearing, at a time like that. 
He waited, and sold maps for bread, and went 
abroad among gay cavaliers with his grave, 
earnest look, and simple, modest garb, making no 
secret of his mission, and often mocked at in the 
streets as a mad enthusiast. Still there was that 
innate nobleness of soul, and that dignity of look 
and manner, which arrested observation, and by 
degrees won listeners among men of education and 
intelligence. Herrera's may be taken as a faithful 
portrait, and is worth quoting as the traditionary 
likeness current among his countrymen, though 
the historian could hardly have conversed with 
those who knew Columbus* " He was tall of 
stature, long visaged, of a majestic aspect, his 
nose hooked, his eyes grey, of a clear complexion, 
somewhat ruddy ; his beard and * hair, when 
young, fair, though through many hardships they 
soon turned grey. He was witty and pleasant, 
well spoken and eloquent, moderately grave, 
affable to strangers, to his own family mild. His 
conversation was discreet, which gained him the 
affection of those he had to deal with, and his 
presence attracted respect, having an air of au- 
thority and grandeur; always temperate in eating 
p 



210 COLUMBUS. 

and modest in his dress. As to religion, he was 
very zealous and devout, often saying, " I will do 
this in the Name of the most Holy Trinity " ; kept 
the fasts of the Church very strictly, often con- 
fessed and communicated, said all the canonical 
hours, abhorred swearing and blasphemy, had a 
peculiar devotion to our Lady and St. Francis, 
was very thankful to Almighty God for the mer- 
cies he received, zealous for God's honour, and 
very desirous of the conversion of the Indians. In 
other respects he was a man of an undaunted 
courage and high thoughts, fond of great enter- 
prizes, patient, ready to forgive wrongs, and only 
desirous that offenders should be sensible of their 
faults ; unmoved in the many troubles and adver- 
sities that attended him, ever relying on the Divine 
Providence. In short, had he performed such a 
wonderful enterprize in the ancient days, as the 
discovery of the New World, it is likely he would 
not only have had statues and even temples erected 
to his honour, but that some star would have 
been dedicated to him, as was done to Hercules 
and Bacchus ; and among us his name will be re- 
nowned whilst the world endures." 
Introducedto B 7 degrees Columbus won his way 
Ferdinand. to Cardinal Mendoza, the first ecclesi- 
astic and Prime Minister of Spain, and by him 






COLUMBUS. 211 

was introduced to Ferdinand. The King longed 
to rival Portugal on the high seas, and caught 
with some eagerness at the sound of an exploring 
expedition with the promise of such grand results. 
Talavera, therefore, was instructed to assemble a 
conclave, comprizing men of the highest dignity 
and profoundest learning. Dignitaries, professors, 
and friars of scientific reputation, assembled at 
Salamanca, the seat of the most famous Uni- 
versity in Spain ; and there, at last, Columbus 
had the audience he longed for, — men, as he 
thought, superior to vulgar prejudices, who would 
listen to his facts, and weigh his reasonings with 
calmness and patience ; men, above all, who would 
look at his great enterprize as Christian men should 
do, and would sympathize with his earnest long- 
ings to carry the blessings of redemption to new 
tribes of the human family. Alas ! his old fate 
pursued him ; some mocked him as a dreamer ; 
others thought him more than half a heretic ; few- 
had the penetration to see how much of sober 
truth and probability was mixed up with the 
project that looked so daring ; one only, Diego de 
Deza, became a convert, and was his advocate and 
fast friend ever afterwards; and this man, like 
Marchena, was a friar.* 

* See NOTE (S). 
p 2 



212 COLUMBUS. 

Conference at We d <> not know how lon g tne ex " 
Salamanca. animation lasted ; nor is there any full 

report of the arguments on either side ; but enough 
is told to make us long for more. The earth's 
spherical form was a thing unproved as yet ; so 
some of the doctors made themselves very merry 
with the notion of the topsy-turvy world at the 
Antipodes. Besides, if there were such a world, 
as Augustine had well argued, how could it be 
peopled? Not by descendants from Adam, for 
the ocean was impassable ; and to suppose another 
progenitor would be to contradict the Bible. — 
The earth must be flat, moreover, some argued; 
for did not the Psalmist speak of the heavens as 
being " spread over it like a curtain ? " But sup- 
pose it round, and let Columbus sail over the 
convex surface to India, — how could he possibly 
return ? for he and his ships would have to climb 
the slope, and get over what would stand, like a 
mountain, in their course. Columbus was pre- 
pared at every point. To the old objection that 
the torrid zone was uninhabitable, he replied that 
he had sailed almost to the Equator, and not only 
lived to come back again, but found Guinea both 
populous and fruitful. He was at home in the 
writings of the fathers, and could quote Scripture 
like the doctors ; only, instead of strained inter- 



COLUMBUS. 213 

pretations of particular texts, he gave them a 
glowing picture of lands rescued from idolatry, 
and blessed with the knowledge of a Redeemer, 
— then, pointing to one passage and another of 
the prophetical writings, he argued that the time 
was come for their complete fulfilment. His 
mission, he said, was to find new lands that they 
might be peopled with obedient converts, who 
should bring in a fresh tribute of praise to Christ, 
the universal Lord. 

Very startling, probably, was this strain from a 
man like Columbus. We can imagine grave men 
looking from the speaker to each other, and mar- 
velling where he got his learning and his eloquence. 
But the physical difficulties remained; the doubts 
of almost all were too stubborn to be charmed 
away by reasonings of this sort; the conclave 
w r as dispersed without coming to any decision ; 
but Columbus was left to hang about the Court, 
hoping for renewed deliberations, and a more fa- 
vourable issue. 

At the end of five years from this Columbus 
time, Columbus was again at the Con- p^ s t0 
vent of La Rabida, where he had left A - d.U91. 
his son. He came to tell his friend, Marchena, 
that he had done with Spain. He had followed 
the wanderings of the Court, had been partly 
p 3 



214 COLUMBUS. 

maintained at its charges, had put up with sus- 
pense and delay through weary months and years ; 
but now patience was exhausted, and hope from 
, that quarter was dead. His thoughts were turned 
to France. Other sovereigns might yet adopt 
the enterprize which the rulers of Spain had held 
cheap. At any rate, no pains should be spared 
on his part to bring about the happy consum- 
mation in which Christendom had a common 
interest. 

Arrested by March ena's patriotic feelings took 
Marchena. a l arm . For n i s C0U ntry he coveted 
with all his heart the glory of adopting and car- 
rying out the scheme of Columbus. With his 
own hand he wrote a letter of remonstrance to 
Isabella, to whom he had once been confessor, and 
dispatched it by a trusty messenger. A speedy 
reply invited his attendance at the royal camp 
before Granada, and without the loss of an hour 
he hastened to the royal presence. His hearty 
commendation of his friend, and earnest entreaties 
to the Queen not to lose such a golden oppor- 
tunity of adding to her high renown, won the ear 
of Isabella, and instant orders were given for the 
recal of Columbus. He came in time to wit- 
ness the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of the 
Moors in Spain, and found the royal councillors 
more willing than before to listen to new schemes 



COLUMBUS. 215 

of conquest, His claims, however, which nothing 
would induce him to abate, seemed to them per- 
fectly monstrous and extravagant, for in his 
poverty, like one born to rule, he would deal with 
Princes on equal terms, and demanded honours 
and rewards in proportion to his own estimate of 
the prize he offered them. Again he was repulsed, 
mounted his mule, and was on his way to Cordova, 
when a last effort was made by one zealous friend. 
To the Queen he spoke of the little that was 
asked compared with all that might be expected, 
if the great adventurer should be crowned with 
success. Her name was great already, and would 
be yet greater if she allied herself to a noble cause, 
and carried the Christian faith to other lands. To 
enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, and solve 
difficult and perplexing problems, was the work 
of enlightened Princes ; and if the little fleet were 
beaten back, and the explorer's hopes should be 
never realized, something was gained and learnt, 
and her own part faithfully discharged towards 
God and man. The Queen's enthusiasm was 
kindled ; her judgment was decided^ and never 
wavered more. " For my own crown of Castile/' 
she said, (i I adopt the enterprize ; and if funds are 
wanted, my own jewels shall be pledged to raise 
them." 

f 4 



216 COLUMBUS. 

His terms Columbus was pursued and over- 

grantee . taken ; and after a moment's hesitation, 
(a critical moment in the world's history), he 
turned his mule's head back towards Granada. 
His terms were now complied with. He was to 
be Admiral in all seas, and Viceroy over all lands, 
discovered by himself; his offices were to be here- 
ditary ; a tenth of the revenue which the new 
provinces should yield in the way of tribute or 
merchandize was to be his ; he or his officers were 
to be arbiters in all disputes connected with the 
traffic of the new-found countries. As to all 
future expeditions, it was settled that he should 
contribute one-eighth of the outlay, receiving in 
return one -eighth of the profits. One other article 
Columbus wished to include, — that the revenue 
derived from his discoveries should be devoted, in 
the first instance, to the recovery of the Holy 
Sepulchre from the infidels. The sovereigns 
smiled, perhaps, at his haste, but were well pleased 
with his devotion. The article was not written 
down as a part of the treaty ; but the wish to 
furnish funds for a last crusade was the darling 
wish of Columbus through all his days, and sus- 
tained him often amidst the vexations and dis- 
appointments of his troubled life. 

Orders were now given to furnish all that was 



COLUMBUS. 217 

necessary for the expedition without delay. Palos, 
so singularly connected with this romantic story, 
was chosen for the starting-place. Martin Pinzon, 
of whom we have heard already, the steady ad- 
herent of Columbus through all those years of 
expectation, was now willing to become the partner 
of his dangers. Two of his brothers joined him ; 
and their united influence with their fellow towns- 
men contributed greatly to the completion of the 
armament. It consisted, at last, but of two light 
caravels, without decks, save at the prow and 
stern, commanded by two of the Pinzons, and one 
ship of larger size commanded by Columbus him- 
self. Fernandez, the physician, who had shared 
their early conferences at the old convent, now 
sailed with them as steward. • One wonders, 
almost, that Marchena did not go as chaplain, to 
make the party complete; he did his part, how- 
ever, on shore, — Columbus reverently confessing 
himself, and receiving the Communion at the hands 
of his old friend, when all was ready for his de- 
parture, and officers and men following the ex- 
ample of their chief. It was a day of anxiety and 
gloom for the little community of Palos ; for few 
among the crews were sustained by the hopes 
which animated their captains ; and their relatives 
looked upon them as doomed to destruction. 



218 COLUMBUS. 



On the morning of the 3rd of Au- 

Sail for ° 

the Xew gnst, 1492, the three vessels stood out 

to sea, haviDg on board three skilful 
pilots besides the Pinzons, and a hundred and 
twenty men. Owing to some delay occasioned 
by a broken rudder, the Canary Islands were not 
left till the 6th of September, and on the 9th 
Ferro was passed, the extremest point hitherto 
known to European navigators. Then came the 
plunge into unknown seas, and each day's sail 
separated the crews more widely from the world 
which they regarded as their own. No wonder, 
while their prows pointed steadily to the West, 
that their eyes were continually searching for 
shore or mountain in that direction ; but, wherever 
they looked, all was one wide waste of waters. 
Evening after evening, for weeks together, the 
sun went down, and no outline of coast, far or 
near, could be traced in the glowing sky. A mast 
floated by them at one time, belonging apparently 
to a vessel of some size, and the timid began to 
question whether it were lawful to tempt Pro- 
vidence by venturing rashly where some unhappy 
voyagers had perished helplessly before. The 
needle did not point truly, but varied several de- 



COLUMBUS. 219 

grees ; and the pilots, in wonder and alarm, asked 
whether it were safe to go where the common 
laws of nature seemed to be suspended, - and the 
skill and knowledge, which had served them in 
other seas, might prove altogether useless. They 
came next within the range of the trade wind 
blowing steadily from East to West; and for a 
time they were content to be speeded on their 
way by gentle, favouring breezes, without the 
shifting of a sail; then came the apprehension 
that no other winds might ever blow in those 
unknown regions, and that return would be im- 
possible, whether they found land beyond them, 
or gave up the search as hopeless. 

More than half the sailors, instead Troubles 
of being willing helpers, had been onboard, 
pressed into a service from which they shrank 
with terror. Winds and waves, therefore, now 
presented less formidable difficulties to the great 
commander than the wild, refractory crew who 
held him, like a captive, in their power. An 
hour's mutiny would be fatal to his purpose. 
The disaffected had but to seize the helm, and 
tack about, and tell their own story in Spain, 
and the dream of his life was at an end. All the 
resources, therefore, of an ingenious and fertile 
mind were called into play while he appealed 



220 COLUMBUS. 

successively to their hopes and fears, — to their 
patriotism and sense of shame. He gave them 
large promises of lands and wealth, and prophesied 
that the toil of weeks would be recompensed a 
hundred fold when their great end should be 
gained. He pictured in glowing words the 
Paradise of plenty which was to be their future 
home, told them of the renown which must follow 
their high achievement, as if it were already 
finished, and said the meanest man on board would 
have his share. With visions of this sort his own 
mind had been filled, and his own hopes sustained, 
through years of disappointment. But he had to 
do with vulgar minds, and low, grovelling natures ; 
and the lengthening track behind, with the unex- 
plored ocean in front, began by degrees to appal 
the hearts of the bravest, while a thousand tales 
of mysterious and unknown horrors were sure to 
be current among the timid and superstitious. 
Hopes and Again and again Columbus revived 

fears. their hopes by his own unfailing con- 

fidence. He praised them for their past services, 
and assured them that perseverance must soon be 
crowned with success. Let the pathless ocean once 
be crossed, and not only would they be amply 
recompensed by their grateful country, but the 
heroic achievement would be one for Spain and 



COLUMBUS. 221 

the civilized world to talk about in future ages. 
His words were seconded, often, by favourable 
signs. Patches of green herbs came floating from 
the West ; birds, neither large nor strong of 
wing, lighted on the ships, and cheered the sailors 
with their song; clouds, in the distant horizon, 
would take the shape of islands, and then hope 
seemed to be exchanged for certainty. On the 
25th of September, Martin Pinzon, from the 
stern of his vessel, cried, " Land, land," and 
claimed for his own the reward of thirty crowns 
promised by the government to the man who 
should first descry it. Columbus threw himself 
on his knees, and gave thanks to God ; while, 
from the Pinta, the hymn Gloria in Excelsis 
was heard, in which the crews of both ships gladly 
joined. Sailors were soon in the rigging, looking 
out towards the South- West ; and there, at a great 
distance, something like land was seen. So their 
course was altered a few points, and through the 
night they steered in that direction ; but morning 
came, and an unbroken expanse of waters was 
around them as before. 

Disappointments of this sort made Growing 
the admiral's position one of yet greater discontent. 
difficulty and peril. His promises were less trusted, 
and his orders more grudgingly obeyed. Little 



222 COLUMBUS. 

groups began to talk in whispers of the necessity 
of caring for their own safety. They had ventured 
far enough already ; the duty which they owed to 
Spain had been faithfully discharged ; they never 
could be bound, in compliance with the mad 
wishes of their leader, to pursue this hopeless, 
endless voyage any farther. Return was possible 
now, and their ships were sound ; but who could 
answer for the future in unknown seas ? Delay 
was dangerous, and the time for resistance was 
surely come if, on further remonstrance, the Ad- 
miral should prove deaf to reason. Some hinted 
at deeds worse than mutiny. One life, they said, 
was cheap in comparison with many. If they 
were driven to extremities, and threw Columbus 
into the sea, they had but to keep their secret, 
and say that he had fallen overboard while en- 
gaged in his favourite pursuit of star-gazing. 
He was no powerful courtier with an army of 
partizans at his back, — no grandee of Spain 
whose loss would make a stir at home, — but a 
stranger in small repute already, whose name 
would soon perish, or would be remembered only 
as that of a rash, dreamy adventurer. The temper 
of the crew could hardly be concealed from 
Columbus. He must have watched the gathering 
gloom and discontent with the feeling that his life 



COLUMBUS. 223 

hung by a thread ; but he was a brave man, who 
never feared danger, and a devout man, whose 
reliance on a watchful and all-disposing Provi- 
dence did not desert him in the most trying 
times. While some, therefore, were plotting in- 
surrection about him, and others looked on him 
with an evil eye, with thoughts of murder in 
their hearts, he kept the same unruffled aspect, 
and gave his orders in a tone of undiminished 
confidence. 

On the 7th of October, according to his private 
reckoning, they had sailed seven hundred and fifty 
leagues, though to his frightened crews he ad- 
mitted only a little more than six hundred. Ci- 
pango, if Toscanelli's map might be trusted, was not 
far off; and hour after hour the Admiral expected 
to see it come into view. Large flights of field- 
birds thronged the air above them, and their course 
was always to the South- West. So, concluding 
that land must be there, he took a more southerly 
course for three days. To him every thing looked 
bright and promising. Small birds came flying 
by in great numbers as before, and in the same 
direction ; while a single heron and pelican were 
eagerly pointed to as signs that some home was 
near. But the sailors had lost all faith in signs. 
The boundless sea filled their eyes and imagina- 



224 COLUMBUS. 

tions, and to find a shore seemed a sheer impossi- 
bility. Accordingly, on the evening of the 10th, 
the long slumbering spirit of insubordination broke 
out into open mutiny. Men and officers assembled 
tumultuously on deck, and demanded permission to 
tack about, and return to Europe that very hour. 
Columbus Then was seen, on board that little 

immovable. yeggel ^ the br()ad AtlantiCj what hag 

been so often seen on a wider stage, how one 
resolute spirit can charm numbers into submission ; 
— how, too, when some work is to be done for the 
advancement of God's designs on earth, the instru- 
ment is made ready at the appointed time, and 
exactly fitted for its purpose. Less of deter- 
mination in Columbus at that critical moment 
would have been followed by his complete dis- 
comfiture ; and, instead of returning to Spain in 
triumph, he would have been a dishonoured man 
in his own age, and an unknown man to us. But 
he met the storm, and quelled it. Nothing should 
turn him back, he said, till he had done the 
bidding of his sovereigns. Seek land they must 
till they found it; and it would be madness to 
give up the search when every thing indicated 
that it was close at hand.* So another anxious 

* See NOTE (T). 



COLUMBUS. 225 

but yet more hopeful day succeeded. A green 
fish was observed of a kind that lives among the 
rocks ; a staff was picked up artificially carved ; 
and a branch of thorn floated by with the berries 
on it fresh and red. More cheerfully, therefore, 
was the Vesper hymn to the Virgin sung that 
night on board the Admiral's ship, according to his 
usual custom ; and when he addressed his crew in 
the language of grateful praise, showing them 
how God in His goodness had given them gentle 
breezes and tranquil seas through all their voyage, 
and almost promising that they should make land 
that very night, past troubles were forgotten, and 
every heart beat high with hope. 

The occurrences of the memorable night which 
followed cannot be better described than in the 
language of Washington Irving, a writer whose 
vocation among men of literature has been some- 
thing like that of Columbus among navigators, it 
having been the business of his life to link 
together the great communities of England and 
America by the bonds of mutual kindness. 

" At sunset," he writes, " they stood , , ,. 

again to the West, and were ploughing covered 
f ' , 1. Oct.. nth. 

the waves at a rapid rate; the jrmta 

(Pinzon's vessel) keeping the lead from her su- 
perior sailing. The greatest animation prevailed 

Q 



226 COLUMBUS. 

throughout the ships ; not an eye was closed that 
night. As the evening darkened Columbus took 
his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the 
high poop of his vessel. However he might carry 
a cheerful and confident countenance during the 
day, it was to him a time of the most painful 
anxiety ; and now, when he was wrapped from 
observation by the shades of night, he maintained 
an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye 
along the dusky horizon in search of the most 
vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten 
o'clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering 
at a distance. Fearing that his eager hopes might 
deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, a 
gentleman of the King's bedchamber, and de- 
manded whether he saw a light in that direction ; 
the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, 
yet doubtful whether it might not be some de- 
lusion of the fancy, called another, Rodrigo 
Sanchez, of Segovia, and made the same enquiry. 
By the time the latter had ascended the round- 
house the light had disappeared. They saw it 
once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing 
gleams, but they were so transient and uncertain 
that few attached any importance to them. Co- 
lumbus, however, considered them as certain signs 
of land, and, moreover, that the land was in- 



COLUMBUS. 227 

habited. They continued on their course till t\vo 
in the morning, when a gun from the Pinta gave 
the joyful sign of land. This was now clearly 
seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they 
took in sail and laid to, waiting impatiently for 
the dawn." 

The dawn came at last, and dis- Landing at 
closed an island, of which the visible St - Salvador. 
extremities seemed only a few leagues apart. It 
proved to be one of the Bahamas, and was named 
by Columbus San Salvador. To the delighted 
Spaniards, as they first gazed upon it from their 
vessels, and then landed on the nearest shore, it 
seemed like an earthly Paradise, with its clusters 
of unknown fruits, its balmy delicious air, and its 
beautiful forests sloping to the sea. Columbus 
was the first to land, as he had a good right to 
be ; a crucifix was erected, and thanks were de- 
voutly offered to God, who had guided them 
safely through unknown seas to so fair a haven ; 
then a banner was set up emblazoned with the 
arms of Castile, and the Sovereigns of Spain were 
proclaimed lords of the new-found territory. 
Natives came from the woods, and began to 
throng about the strangers. To them every thing 
was wonderful alike. Splendid dresses, glittering 
armour, bearded chins, fair complexions, — all 

Q 2 



228 COLUMBUS. 

were new and strange. Ships and men, they 
thought, must have descended from the skies. 
The Spaniards, too, gazed in their turn upon a 
people in all the rude simplicity of nature. Their 
naked bodies were painted with various devices 
in white and black and red. Their lances were 
headed with fish-bones ; and when some handled 
a Spanish sword, they took it fearlessly by the 
edge. They bartered freely anything they had 
for glass beads or trifles which had a showy 
look. The sea seemed almost like their native 
element, they paddled their canoes with such 
dexterity, or swam with so much ease and grace. 
Questions were put and answered, of course, by 
signs. Some ornaments of gold soon caught the 
eye of the strangers; and the natives, when 
enquiry was made respecting them, pointed to the 
South. All was interpreted by Columbus in con- 
nexion with his previous theories. Recollections 
of Marco Polo haunted him at every step. So 
the South in his eyes meant Cipango, and there, 
doubtless, within a few days' sail, was the golden- 
roofed palace, and the city of the great Khan. 

Real islands were lying; thickly about 

Cuba and m _ j o j 

Hayti dis- him, while he was dreaming of others 

which had no existence. In the course 

of a fortnight's sail, besides three smaller ones, 



COLUMBUS. 229 

which he named Santa Maria de la Conception, 
Fernandina, and Isabella, he reached Qct 2gth 
a fourth, which he loyally called Juana, 
in honour of Prince Juan of Spain. After many 
days of coasting, its shores still stretched far 
away beyond his sight; mountains, rivers, har- 
bours, were all on a much grander scale than he 
had seen elsewhere; and Columbus made sure 
that he had reached Terra Firma at last. But it 
was really Cuba, its old name having survived ; 
and it remains to this day the noblest colonial 
possession of the Spanish Monarchy. A month 
was occupied in cruising and landing at dif- 
ferent points; and then the Eastern extremity 
was reached, after two hundred miles of the 
Northern coast had been explored. The name 
of Alpha and Omega, given by Columbus to 
the last headland, marked his conviction that he 
had reached the beginning or the end of Asia. 
Whither, then, should he steer next? Home- 
wards, to announce his triumph, — or onwards, to 
learn yet more ? While this point was undecided, 
some lofty mountains were seen in the dis- 
tance, yet more to the East, separated D h 
by some miles of sea from Cuba ; so 
onwards he sailed in that direction, and lighted 

Q 3 



230 COLUMBUS. 

upon the island which became so famous in his 
subsequent history, Hatti or Hispaniola. 

The latter name was given from some fancied 
resemblance to the mother country ; and a little 
Spain it became in after years, — the seat of her 
Western Empire, — alternately a mine of wealth, 
and a theatre of misery and crime, to the count- 
less adventurers who came flocking to its shores. 
Nothing, however, could be more friendly than 
the earliest greetings between the natives and 
their future masters. Trinkets were exchanged, 
as before, for golden ornaments. The strangers 
were still supposed to have come from Turey, 
the Indian name for heaven. The wild, naked 
race, at the bidding of their chiefs, entertained 
Columbus with their games and dances ; and he 
astonished them, in return, with the flash, and 
noise, and destructive powers of a cannon which 
he had brought to shore. A cacique, named 
Guacanagari, played the host with all possible 
generosity and consideration. When Columbus's 
ship was Avrecked on a sand-bank on the morning 
of Christmas Day, help was freely rendered, and 
the property of the strangers was safely stored 
and guarded as if they had been friends or 
brothers. There was much, in fact, to justify 
the glowing description of Columbus, in his first 



COLUMBUS. 231 

report to his Sovereigns, " These people love 
their neighbours as themselves; their discourse 
is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied by a 
smile. I swear to your Majesties there is not in 
the world a better nation, or a better land." 

The beauty of the country, indeed, was a per- 
petual source of delight to the great discoverer. 
He revelled in the luxuriant scenery which met 
his eyes on every side, and was never tired of expa- 
tiating on the rich, varied landscapes, the fragrant 
gales, the spreading foliage of the woods, filled as 
they were with birds of brightest hue and sweetest 
song. So, at least, they sounded to his ear, though 
to naturalists it is a known fact that, according to 
that law of compensation which prevails so ex- 
tensively in God's works, the most musical note 
and the most brilliant plumage never go together. 
" The nightingales," he writes, " and various 
birds were singing in countless numbers, and 
that in November ; " but neither in spring nor 
winter has their song been heard in those lati- 
tudes by any later travellers. He was half- 
bewildered, in fact, with joy, and his very senses 
were under the influence of his strong and active 
imagination, as he explored the charms of these 
beautiful lands, and remembered the toil by 
which he had won his way to them. 
q 4 



232 COLUMBUS. 

Settlement in His followers, too, some of them, 
Hispaniola. began to look around them, and to 
covet a place of rest in that delicious climate. 
The eyes of others were turned wistfully towards 
their distant homes. So Columbus resolved to 
divide them into two parties, leaving some to 
form a settlement in Hispaniola, while he returned 
with the rest to Spaim Many things concurred 
to make a speedy return desirable. Pinzon, in 
the Pinta, had parted from the other vessels, and 
had not been seen for a whole month. Colum- 
bus's ship being lost, it was all-important to 
secure the safe return of the remaining caravel to 
Europe. Delays were dangerous; and he could 
ill afford to run any needless risk while he 
carried with him the burden of such a mighty 
secret. A convenient site, therefore, having been 
chosen, a wooden tower was erected, and thither 
the necessary stores were conveyed. Thirty-nine 
men were chosen for the garrison from a larger 
number of volunteers, and one or two cannon 
were supplied to them from the lost ship. Before 
he sailed, Columbus specially charged them to be 
considerate and forbearing in all their dealings 
with the natives, and for their own safety recom- 
mended them not to scatter themselves over the 



COLUMBUS. 233 

island, but rather to keep themselves within the 
territories of the friendly cacique, Guacanagari. 

On the 4th of January the solitary 
vessel left Hispaniola. After a month's Sails for 
sail, a storm raged for many days 
without intermission, threatening destruction to 
ship and crew. His life Columbus would have 
laid down willingly in any great cause; but to 
perish in the wide ocean, between the two shores 
which he was about to bind together after ages of 
separation, seemed to him a calamity beyond en- 
durance. He had fallen in with the Pinta shortly 
after leaving Hispaniola ; but in the tempest she 
was missing again ; and Pinzon's account of his 
previous separation made his fidelity very ques- 
tionable. If his ship had foundered, then every- 
thing depended on one frail vessel outliving that 
dreadful tempest ; if he got first to Spain, the 
temptation would be great to intercept the fame 
which belonged of right to Columbus himself. 
In his distress the Admiral adopted the expedient 
of putting a brief record of his discovery into a 
cask, and offering a handsome reward to the 
finder, if he should forward the packet straightway 
to the court of Spain ; but how small the chance 
that it would reach its destination ! and how 



234 COLUMBUS. 

great the loss if, for generations to come, the tale 
of wonder should be untold ! 

Eetumto Happily He, who had guided the 

Europe. explorer on his way, stilled the storm 

at the critical moment, and Columbus lived to tell 
the tale himself. One of the Azores was the first 
land he touched ; and having been delayed there 
some days by uncivil treatment at the hands of 
the Portuguese authorities, and encountered ano- 
ther storm after he had left the island, he landed 
on the 4th of March off the rock of Cintra, at the 
mouth of the Tagus. Thence a courier was dis- 
patched straightway to Spain, with the tidings of 
his discovery and safe return*; and when the 
news reached Lisbon, only a few miles off, he was 
invited to court by King John, and entertained 
there with the greatest honour. The events of 
his voyage were narrated to a crowd of courtiers, 
who listened with feeling's of mincrled admiration 
and envy, as they learnt what Spain had won, 
and Portugal had missed ; then the tale of wonder 
was repeated for the entertainment of the Queen 
and her ladies, who gave him yet heartier sym- 
pathy, and hung delighted at his lips ; at last, the 
princely offer was made by the Monarch to attend 
him to the Spanish frontier, and provide the 

* See NOTE (U). 



COLUMBUS. 235 

charges of his journey, if he chose to travel by 
land. But it was fit that the sea should bear him 
homewards, with his great conquest achieved; 
so in his good vessel the Nina, he sailed out of 
harbour once more, and reached Palos on the 
15th of March, — the same Palos at which we 
first saw him begging a meal for his child, and 
which he had left for his great enterprize seven 
months and a half before. 

There are few scenes of more thril- Reception 
ling interest in the modern history of m s P am - 
Europe than that which describes the reception of 
Columbus, after his first voyage, by the Sove- 
reign and people of Spain. His journey to Bar- 
celona, where the court then resided, was like the 
progress of a sovereign. As he drew near, many 
of the youthful courtiers and cavaliers, followed 
by a vast concourse of the populace, came forth 
to meet him. His entrance into the city had all 
the solemn state, and much of the picturesque 
beauty, of a Roman triumph. First were paraded 
six Indians, whom he had brought from the other 
side of the globe, painted according to their savage 
fashion, and decorated with ornaments of gold, 
looking, to the wondering eye of the multitude, 
almost like the natives of another planet. After 
this were borne various kinds of live parrots, to- 



236 COLUMBUS. 

gether with stuffed birds and animals of unknown 
species, and rare plants supposed to be of precious 
qualities ; while special care was taken to display 
the Indian coronets, bracelets, and other decora- 
tions of gold, which might give an idea of the 
wealth of the newly-discovered regions. Then 
came Columbus on horseback : every eye was 
attracted by his look of nobleness and majesty, 
which corresponded well with the greatness of the 
occasion, and the magnificence of the spectacle. 
The streets were almost impassable from the 
multitude ; the houses, even to the roofs, were 
crowded with spectators. The Sovereigns awaited 
his approach under .a rich canopy of gold, and, 
when he bent the knee and would have kissed 
their hands, they raised him graciously, and bade 
him be seated in their presence. After Columbus 
had recounted the principal events of the voyage, 
and had spoken, in his glowing style, of wealthy 
provinces to be added to the Spanish crown, and 
nations of infidels to be gathered into the Church, 
— the King and Queen sank on their knees, and 
with streaming eyes and uplifted hands poured 
forth their thanks and praise. There was no 
vulgar applause, no shout of triumph; but the 
Te Deum was chanted by the choir of the Chapel 
Roval, and, for the time, all lower feelings seemed 



COLUMBUS. 237 

to be swallowed up in adoration of that good 
Providence which had guided him in his perilous 
voyage, and brought him back to proclaim his 
great achievement. 

Spain did her best, during the few succeeding 
months, to give honour to the man who had ven- 
tured so much for her, and fulfilled all his pro- 
mises. But Columbus wished for nothing but to 
be 'again afloat, with a goodly band of settlers and 
explorers, who should help him to occupy the 
new-found territory, and push his discoveries yet 
farther. So a second expedition was prepared, 
and numbers gladly joined him, this time, who 
were eager for adventure, or athirst for gold. 
A body of ecclesiastics was added by the special 
command of Isabella ; and to priests and laymen 
the charge was given to treat the natives with 
compassionate tenderness, and win them by pa- 
tience and kindness to the Christian faith. 

By the following September all was g a }i s on se _ 
ready; and on the 23rd Columbus ^d voyage. 
sailed from Spain with a fleet consisting of three 
large vessels and fourteen caravels, — the little 
port of Palos, made so famous by his history, 
being once more his starting-place. Six weeks 
were occupied in crossing the ocean, and after 
sailing for some time among the Antilles, and 



238 COLUMBUS. 

touching at Guadaloupe, Dominica and Porto 
Rico, another fortnight brought Columbus to the 
harbour of the Nativity in Hispaniola, where he 
had left the Spanish settlers. As the vessels 
approached the shore, darkness prevented him 
from seeing whether things remained as he had 
left them; and a night of anxious expectation 
N 28th preceded his landing. The morning 
dawned, and he looked anxiously for 
some signal from his countrymen on shore; but 
no boat came out; cannon were fired, but no 
answer was returned ; neither European nor In- 
dian appeared within sight; and the busy, ani- 
mated scene, which had met the voyagers on their 
first arrival, when the land was covered with 
wondering natives, and the water thronged with 
their swift canoes, was exchanged for a silent 
solitude. A boat was sent ashore, and the crew, 
on their return, reported that the fortress was a 
ruin. Not a Spaniard was to be found; only 
fragments of their property were scattered about, 
which gave rise to fearful conjectures respecting 
their fate. Two or three Indians lurked among 
the woods, who fled in terror as the other party 
approached them. 

Disasters at Such was the first disappointment 
Hispanioia. of Columbus in the New World, and 



COLUMBUS. 239 

it was followed by a thousand others. His hope 
of peaceful triumphs to be won by wisdom and 
love over heathen tribes would begin to fade 
away on that morning of doubt and gloom ; and 
the tidings which quickly followed changed his 
fears into certainty. By degrees the sad truth 
came out. The Christians, who were left behind, 
had begun by oppressing the natives, and had 
gone on to dispute among themselves. No disci- 
pline was kept up ; no rights were respected ; the 
Indians were stripped of their golden ornaments ; 
their very homes were assaulted, and their wives 
and daughters taken away by force. Esteeming 
themselves invincible, the strangers had taken no 
precautions for their safety. Instead of continuing 
together under the shelter of the fort, they wan- 
dered in groups over the island ; and, while every 
thing was done to provoke resistance, they despised 
the natives too much to apprehend the possibility 
of danger. Still their first friends did not turn 
against them. The inhabitants of the coast won- 
dered to see men whom they had been ready to 
worship as gods thus sunk and debased ; but they 
bore with their wrongs, and made no effort at 
retaliation. There were bolder spirits, however, 
in the interior, who had watched their oppor- 
tunity; and, when the Spanish force was divided, 



240 COLUMBUS. 

assailed and destroyed their stronghold, burnt the 
surrounding houses, with their sleeping inmates, 
and cut off the stragglers without leaving a single 
man alive. " Such," says the historian, " was 
the first foot-print of civilization in the New 
World." What a faithful epitome of the injuries 
and reprisals repeated so often on a larger scale 
in the commerce between Christian Europe and 
the Aborigines of Asia, Africa and America ! 
Discontent The months which followed were 

of settlers. eventful ones in the life of Columbus, 
and made him acquainted with the countless diffi- 
culties which rendered his career henceforth one 
continued scene of trouble and vexation. A co- 
lony had to be formed, — houses and fortresses to 
be built, — the land to be cultivated, — natives to 
be won upon by kindness, and made subservient 
to the purposes of the settlers. But a large 
portion of his followers were men utterly incom- 
petent for services of this sort. Many of them 
were from the noblest families of Spain, and had 
come out, not to toil, but to revel in the delights 
of that land which the glowing fancy of Columbus 
had pictured to himself and others as an earthly 
Paradise. Gold was the bait which had figured 
largely in his descriptions, and drawn many an 
adventurer from his home. Yellow dust, in con- 



COLUMBUS. 241 

siderable quantities, was collected from the beds 
of rivers; and lumps of the shining metal were 
brought to them sometimes by the natives; but 
the mines, for which they enquired, were ever in 
some distant province, or beyond some lofty 
mountain. Treasure, therefore, accumulated but 
slowly, and the necessity of labour was an im- 
mediate and pressing evil. Provisions became 
scarce ; mills and other appliances of civilized life 
had to be furnished ; all hands were wanted ; dis- 
tinction of ranks was forgotten; and the young 
hidalgo, who had looked upon any service but 
military service as degrading, found himself com- 
pelled by the impartial justice of Columbus to 
take tool in hand, and to live upon short com- 
mons. Murmuring and contumacy were followed 
by restraint ; and then indignation became yet 
louder against the upstart foreigner. Nothing 
can be nobler than the manner in which the 
injured Governor speaks of wrongs like these. 
" It was then," he writes to the Sovereigns, 
" that complaints arose, disparaging the enterprize 
that I had undertaken, because, forsooth, I had 
not immediately sent the ships home laden with 
gold ; no allowance being made for the shortness 
of the time, and all the other impediments of 
which I have already spoken. On this account, 
R 



242 COLUMBUS. 

either as a punishment for my sins, or, as I trust, 
for my salvation, I was held in detestation, and 
had obstacles placed in the way of every thing for 
which I petitioned." ' 

Columbus, disappointed himself, — finding the 
natives not all of them so harmless and docile as 
he hoped, — baffled in his search after the treasure 
of which he had spoken so largely, — and meeting 
with unexpected difficulties in his new work of 
founding a Christian commonwealth among sa- 
vage tribes, — had to feed the hopes, and satisfy 
the yearning curiosity of the Spanish court and 
people. The task was a difficult and delicate 
one ; particularly as other reports would be sent 
home, and were sure to be coloured by the dis- 
content of the factious portion of his followers. 
Still, in keeping alive the expectations which he 
had once excited, Columbus did but speak what 
he believed and hoped. Amidst all that was dis- 
couraging, he still kept in view the great end of 
civilizing and improving the simple child-like race 
who had won his heart by their gentleness. Some 
were sent home from among the hardier and 
bolder tribes whom he had encountered in his 
outward voyage, to be instructed in the useful 
arts, and to learn the language and religion of 
Spain ; and all disappointments and disasters were 



COLUMBUS. 243 

treated as insignificant compared with the glorious 
scheme of carrying the light and blessings of 
Christianity to lands peopled with idolaters. 

Amidst all the difficulties of his 
anxious, busy life, Columbus never Exploring 
lost the spirit of adventure which V0 7 a g e - 
prompted his great enterprize, and had given it 
success. By the spring of 1494, having founded 
the first Christian town of the New World, and 
named it after his royal mistress, — having spent 
some time, moreover, in exploring the interior of 
Hispaniola, and done what he could to establish a 
government which should be respected by the 
settlers and the natives, — he was ready for an 
exploring voyage, and started, with his three 
smallest vessels, for Cuba. He longed to ascer- 
tain its size and shape, and to put to the test his 
favourite theory, that the extreme point of Asia 
was either there or not far away. So 

• • n i -r^ i Mil 29th April. 

beginning from the East he sailed along 
the Southern coast of the island, cultivating a 
friendly intercourse with the natives as he pro- 
ceeded, and gathering from them such uncertain 
information as could be communicated by names 
and signs. When he enquired for gold, they 
pointed South, and, gathering from them that an 
island lay there which was rich in the precious 

R 2 



244 COLUMBUS. 

metal, lie turned his prow in that direction, and a 
few hours' sail brought him within sight of the blue 
mountains of Jamaica. He found a land rich in 
natural beauties, and a people more advanced in 
intelligence than the inhabitants of the other 
islands ; but he was disappointed in his search for 
treasure ; so he returned to his original purpose, 
and for a month together kept coasting Cuba to 
the West, hoping more and more confidently, as he 
passed league after league of unbroken shore, that 
his great end was gained at last. Only let the 
land at his right be a continent, and the great 
Indian Ocean, he made sure, was at no great 
distance. Thence he could return to Europe, 
either by circumnavigating Africa, or by sailing 
up the Red Sea. Visions of this sort kept him 
ever satisfied and hopeful; but he had to deal 
with scanty resources and unwilling followers. 
His little vessels were unequal to a lengthened 
voyage, and the crews were indisposed, as usual, 
to venture into new dangers for the sake of specu- 
lations in which they took no interest. Again, 
therefore, he was beaten back. His ardent spirit 
had to check itself when he was in full pursuit. 
Before he turned, however, he made every man on 
board sign a declaration that he believed Cuba to 
be a continent. Doubtless they subscribed the do- 



COLUMBUS. 245 

cument with, hearty willingness, having no opposing 
prejudices in the way, and would have called it by 
any name Columbus liked best to get back sooner 
to their homes and friends. The point at which 
they turned back is tolerably well ascertained; 
and it is remarkable that they were then almost 
within sight of the Western extremity of Cuba. 
A look-out from the mast-head might have dissi- 
pated all the Indian fancies of Columbus, and 
given anolher direction to his life of adventure. 

One incident from the narrative of 
his return voyage is worth extracting. 
The crews landed one day, after a fatiguing sail, 
at the mouth of a fine river in a fertile part of the 
island. Their store of provisions had run short, 
but was quickly replenished by the generosity of 
the natives. The commander, as his custom was 
in places that had anything of a marked character 
about them, set up a large cross by the river 
side ; and, it being Sunday morning, mass was 
celebrated in a grove hard by, while the cacique, 
or Indian chief, with some of his attendants, 
looked on in silent wonder. An aged man of 
fourscore years was among the company, and 
when the ceremony was over, he thus addressed 
Columbus: — "I am told that thou hast lately 
come to these lands with a mighty force, and hast 

B 3 



246 COLUMBUS. 

subdued many countries, spreading great fear 
among the people. But be not, therefore, vain- 
glorious. Know that according to our belief the 
souls of men have two journeys to perform after 
they have departed from the body ; one to a place 
dismal, foul, and covered with darkness, prepared 
for such as have been unjust and cruel to their 
fellow-men ; the other, full of delight, for such 
as have promoted peace on earth. If, then, thou 
art mortal, and dost expect to die, beware that 
thou hurt no man wrongfully, neither do harm to 
those who have done no harm to thee." What 
an appropriate and needful homily for many who 
have gone forth from Christendom to heathen 
lands and tribes ! How often has the cross been 
set up in mockery, and plain morality like that of 
the aged Indian been discarded and forgotten ! 
Meeting with Columbus returned to Hispaniola 
his brother. completely exhausted in body and 
mind. He was carried to his new town of Isa- 
bella in a state of insensibility ; but found tidings 
awaiting him there which revived and gladdened 
him beyond measure. His brother Bartholomew 
had arrived in his absence. After years of sepa- 
ration, and a lengthened pursuit, he was come to 
join counsels and fortunes with the great dis- 
coverer, and was his best and most faithful helper 



COLUMBUS. 247 

ever afterwards. He had qualifications of the 
highest order for the service to which he was 
called, being the equal of Columbus in seaman- 
like skill and daring, generous in temper, resolute 
in action, of a penetrating and commanding in- 
tellect, with yet more of sagacity and worldly 
prudence to shape his own course, or meet the 
evil designs of others. Surrounded as the Ad- 
miral was by restless, intriguing spirits, — his 
greatness always envied, and his authority not 
unfrequently defied, — one such fast friend was 
invaluable. To no other could he depute the 
cares of government so confidently, when sum- 
moned to a distance ; and with none besides could 
he consult so freely amid the thousand perplexities 
of his anxious life. Columbus gladly nominated 
his brother Adelantado, or Lieutenant-Governor, 
of all the newly-acquired Spanish territories ; and 
amply did he justify the appointment by faithful, 
vigilant service in future years. 

Bartholomew, as we have already Adventures of 
mentioned, had been dispatched by Bartholomew. 
Columbus about the year 1486 to solicit from 
Henry VII. the means of prosecuting the great 
enterprize which had since been crowned with 
success. A long time elapsed before the pro- 
position was fairly laid before the English mon- 

K 4 



248 COLUMBUS. 

arch. The country was only just beginning to 
recover from the exhaustion consequent upon a 
disputed succession, and ruinous domestic wars ; 
the temper of the King, moreover, was cau- 
tious and pacific ; but it chanced that the project 
met with more favour here than in other Eu- 
ropean Courts, and Bartholomew was actually 
on his way to Spain to report to Columbus that 
ships and men would be supplied to him from 
England, when the news met him at Paris that 
Spain had made the venture, and won the prize. 
He felt immediately that his place was by his 
brother's side, and a hundred crowns were ad- 
vanced by the King of France to enable him to 
prosecute his journey ; but Columbus had sailed 
on his second voyage before he could reach 
Seville, and had started again for Cuba before 
Bartholomew reached Hispaniola. After eight 
years, however, of strange adventure, each labour- 
ing in his way towards one common end, they 
met, at last, in the New World, of which they 
had so often spoken, and where duties and trials 
awaited them no less severe than those to which 
they had been called already. 

During the absence of Columbus, 
Insubor- tit „ , 

dination at his countrymen had done all that men 

spanioa. cou \ft fo j- ru J n ^q i n f an t colony. 



COLUMBUS. 249 

He had left the government too much divided, 
and the men whom he had invested with autho- 
rity began soon to quarrel about their respective 
portions. There was his brother Diego at the 
head of a council at Isabella, and, associated with 
him, one Father Boyle, the Apostolical Yicar of 
the New World, but in heart an ambitious priest, 
instead of a faithful, devoted missionary. One 
Margarita was appointed military commander, 
with orders to make a tour of observation through 
the island, w T hile Alonzo de Ojeda was left with 
a small garrison at Fort St. Thomas, which had 
been erected by Columbus in the strongest part 
of the country, near the richest mines, and in the 
territory of the most warlike of the native chiefs, 
Caonabo. Margarita and his soldiers, instead of 
exploring the island, lingered wherever they 
found themselves most comfortable, treated the 
wealth of the country as if it were their own, and 
soon roused the indignation of the patient na- 
tives by their oppressive and licentious conduct. 
When called to account by Diego Columbus, he 
claimed to be independent of the council, was 
supported in his arrogant claim by Father Boyle, 
and presently found a host of followers among 
the young nobles of the colony. "Who was 
Diego Columbus," they said, " to lord it over 



250 COLUMBUS. 

men of noble birth? What pretensions had he 
or his brother to assume the airs of princes, 
merely because one of them led the way to this 
new-found country ? " With so many materials 
for disaffection, it was not difficult to get up a 
hostile faction; and to such extremities did its 
leaders proceed that Margarita and Boyle, the 
two men who were bound by every consideration 
of duty to keep up discipline and promote good- 
will among the settlers, actually sailed for Spain 
to accuse Columbus and his brother to their 
Sovereigns. 

League among While the Spaniards were thus 
native chiefs, weakening their forces by discord, 
the enemy (for so the gentle natives were fast be- 
coming under repeated provocations) were learn- 
ing the necessity of union. The whole island 
was divided between five caciques or sovereign 
chiefs ; and Caonabo, dreading the encroach- 
ments of the Spaniards, and indignant at seeing a 
garrison already established at Eort St. Thomas, 
in the heart of his own domain, had done his 
utmost to unite them in a league of mutual pro- 
tection, and then to watch their opportunity for a 
combined attack on all the Spanish forces. His 
endeavours were so far successful that four out of 
the five were already banded together for this 



COLUMBUS. 251 

purpose. The fifth held out against all soli- 
citations. In fair weather and foul, nothing 
could shake the devotion of Guacanagari to the 
Spaniards. He was too conscious of their power, 
too much awed by their commanding superiority, 
and, apparently, too much bound by the ties of 
friendship to their noble leader, to join any hostile 
confederacy ; and, accordingly, soon after the 
return of Columbus, full particulars of the in- 
tended attack were furnished to him by the 
friendly chief, and the offer was given, at the 
same time, to assist the Spaniards to the utmost, 
and to fight by their side if his brother-chiefs 
should bring matters to the crisis of a battle. 

In this state of things, it was all- capture of 
important to strike at the head of the Caonabo. 
opposing league. If Caonabo could be removed, 
the other caciques would be comparatively harm- 
less. But he lived in a wild, woodland country, 
protected by mountain fastnesses, and to attack 
him in his strongholds, with only a handful of men 
against a numerous army, was an act of daring 
on which no prudent commander would venture. 
Ojeda had already stood a siege in his fort of St. 
Thomas, with a garrison of fifty men, against 
Coanabo and his ten thousand warriors; and 
emboldened by success, and delighting in enter- 



252 COLUMBUS. 

prizes of the wildest and most romantic kind, he 
offered himself to Columbus to penetrate into the 
very heart of the chieftain's country, and bring 
him as a friend or foe to the Spanish quarters. 
He was the very model of an adventurer of that 
age, half cavalier, half freebooter, trained to all 
martial exercises and stratagems in warfare 
with the Moors, with a touch of superstition 
which made him fancy himself a charmed man 
when dangers were' thickest. He was the sworn 
champion of the Virgin ; he invoked her aid in 
every time of difficulty ; he carried her picture 
in his knapsack, and, while his treasure was safe, 
fancied no mortal weapon could do him harm. 
So with ten of his boldest followers for a body- 
guard, all well-armed and w t ell-mounted, he 
sought the cacique in the midst of his own 
people, and begged him to come to the town of 
Isabella to make a treaty of peace with Columbus. 
His chief bribe was the chapel-bell which sum- 
moned the Spaniards to mass. This had excited 
the wonder of the natives, partly for its far- 
reaching music, and partly for the influence 
which it seemed to exercise over the motions of 
the strangers, bringing them to their knees by 
the Vesper-peal, or drawing them from twenty 
different places at once to the sacred spot at the 



COLUMBUS. 253 

appointed times of gathering. Coanabo bad 
heard of the wonder-working instrument, and had 
longed to see it. To possess it, he would give up 
his dream of conquest, and become, for a time at 
least, the friend and ally of the white man. He 
was attracted, moreover, by the noble bearing of 
Ojeda, by his uncommon physical strength, and 
frank, soldier-like address. He bore no ill- 
will to the man who had repulsed his armies at 
the fort, but thought him only the worthier asso- 
ciate. Caonabo professed his willingness to go 
to the Admiral, but, as a king, he must be royally 
attended, and accordingly, to the surprise of 
Ojeda, an army was assembled for the purpose. 
A meeting on such terms would not answer the 
Spaniard's purpose ; so a stratagem was boldly 
conceived, and executed with complete success, 
which ranks with the most romantic feats of that 
romantic age. Producing a pair of manacles of 
highly-polished steel, Ojeda persuaded the un- 
suspecting chief that they were princely orna- 
ments such as were worn on state occasions in 
the country from whence he came. Then ex- 
hibiting his own splendid war-horse to the ad- 
miring Indians, he proposed that, mounted and 
fettered, like the great king himself whom Ojeda. 
served, Caonabo should enter the presence off 



254 COLUMBUS. 

Columbus. The bait took. The prince ranked 
with the first of his countrymen for wisdom and 
for courage ; his spirit and energy had well nigh 
brought ruin to the intruding strangers ; but he 
was like a trusting child in the hands of the white 
man. He let himself be mounted behind Ojeda, 
and shackled like a prisoner ; then it was no hard 
matter for the Spanish horsemen, by a little 
manoeuvring, to separate themselves from the 
body of Caonabo's followers, to surround their 
chief, to threaten death to the prisoner if he 
provoked them by resistance, and to gallop across 
the country with their prize. 

We give this as a specimen of the mingled 
subtlety and daring by which the weaker race 
was made subject to the stronger, — as a sample, 
too, (must we not add ?) of the crimes by which 
Christendom was disgraced in the eyes of those 
whom it should have taught and blessed. Ca- 
onabo was sent as a prisoner to Spain, but died 
upon the voyage. Had he lived, neither Spain 
nor Europe could have boasted a prisoner of more 
royal bearing. He honoured his captor with 
special honour as one who had executed a master- 
stroke in the warfare which he loved. When 
Columbus visited him, he sat in his prison while 
Others stood ; when Ojeda entered, he rose and 



COLUMBUS. 255 

gave him reverence. He recognized no rank 
above his own ; but the man, who had the cou- 
rage and address to seize a warrior in the midst of 
his fighting-men, was one to whom a prince might 
make obeisance. The widow of Caonabo was 
Anacaona, who played an important part in 
the history of her country. Her beauty and 
grace were accompanied by commanding talents ; 
and, in spite of all that she had suffered from the 
Spaniards, their genius and successes drew her 
to their side. Her fate, we shall see, was yet 
sadder, and her story yet more full of shame to 
the white man, than that of her noble husband. 
The spring of 1495 found the whole 

A.D. 1495, 

Spanish force arrayed against an im- War and* 
mense Indian host gathered from al- V1C or ^* 
most every quarter of the island. Two short years 
had brought to a close the friendship of early 
days, and repeated injuries had roused the natives 
to attempt a last struggle for freedom. For a 
long time they bore their wrongs in silence, 
hoping that they would soon be ended. They 
asked the strangers when they would be returning 
to Turey, meaning the heavens from which they 
supposed the white men to have come, and ex- 
pected, from week to week, to see the last of them 
depart, as they had come, in their great canoes, 



256 COLUMBUS. 

with sails like wings. But when it was found 
that the arrivals were many, and the departures 
few,— when rising forts and growing towns be- 
tokened a lengthened residence, — and acts of 
tyranny became more frequent as the growing 
numbers of the colonists made it difficult to re- 
strain them by discipline, — the most patient and 
enduring of races began to look to their own 
safety, and thought the time was come for driving 
out the intruders. Caonabo's brother, eager to 
revenge his own private wrongs and those of his 
suffering countrymen, headed the combined armies 
of the four hostile caciques, and was on the point 
of attacking the Spanish forces at Isabella, when 
Guacanagari, constant in his friendship to Co- 
lumbus, gave him notice of their coming, Attack, 
in such a case was better than defence, and a 
single battle decided the fate of Hispaniola. The 

little Christain army of two hundred 
March 27th. . J 

men having been so disposed as to 

make the terrifying accompaniments of artillery, 
horses and blood hounds, as conspicuous as pos- 
sible, a panic presently seized the Indian host, and 
left them the unresisting prey of the pursuers. 
Their spirit was gone from that day, and they 
sank despairingly into the place of bondsmen. 
Fortresses were scattered thicklv over their beau- 



COLUMBUS. 257 

tiful island; a tribute was imposed which drove 

every youth above fourteen to the streams or to 

the mountain to hunt for gold ; and their life of 

dreamy indolence was exchanged henceforth for 

oppressive, consuming toil. 

One grieves to hear of such wrongs Columbus 

in connexion with a man like Colum- pursued by 

slanderers, 
bus, who meant better things, and 

longed to exercise a sort of paternal rule over the 
simple natives. But his difficulties were those 
which have ever beset the invader, when deter- 
mined to keep his ground against a people strong 
in numbers, but far inferior in all the arts of 
civilization ; and he was surrounded by men 
whom, as a governor, he could hardly help pro- 
tecting, but whose crimes were continually 
thwarting his benevolent intentions. Sometimes 
their lawless habits compelled him to measures of 
severity ; and then the outcry was renewed that 
his rule was harsh and despotic, and fresh resolu- 
tions were taken, by fair means or foul, to destroy 
his interest at court. Already had it begun to 
decline. The representations of Margarita and 
Father Boyle, though not implicitly trusted, had 
produced their effect : they might be true, and 
could only be sifted by enquiries on the spot ; so 
before the end of 1495 a Commissioner landed in 



258 COLUMBUS. 

the New World, with authority from the Spanish 
Government to report upon the affairs of the 
colony, and to learn, if possible, how the truth 
stood between Columbus and his enemies. Com- 
plainants were invited to come forwards, and 
obtained a ready hearing ; men who had been 
punished for their crimes now retorted on the 
judge ; and mal-administration was easily proved 
when all the public acts of the Governor were 
canvassed by reckless accusers before a partial 
tribunal. Columbus, never unmindful of his 
dignity, and strong in the sense of his ill-requited 
services, yielded implicit respect to the Commis- 
sioner as representing his Sovereigns, permitted 
the enquiry to proceed without condescending to 
put himself on his defence, and when the charges 
were concluded, and Aguado was preparing to 
carry them back to Spain, resolved to sail with 
him, and tell his own story in the royal presence. 

a.d. U96. His second progress, after landing, 

themhi 18 was a stran ge contrast to his memo- 
Spain, rable entry into Barcelona. He met 
the Sovereigns at Burgos, but he met them, not 
like a warrior on his day of triumph, but clad in 
the humble garb of a Franciscan monk. It is 
not unlikely that this was done in obedience to 



COLUMBUS. 259 

some religious vow; but, at any rate, the change 
agreed but too well with his own faded hopes and 
altered prospects. Of the dreams of conquest 
and glory which then filled his mind how little 
had been realized ! and how much endured of 
suffering and disappointment ! His companions, 
too, had quite another look from the hardy 
seamen who had then followed in his train, proud 
alike of their leader and their conquest. They 
were returned colonists, who had come back dis- 
comfited from the land of promise ; men of broken 
health or ruined fortunes ; many of them idle, 
profligate adventurers, who had become speedily 
disgusted with a settler's life, when they found it 
did not yield them wealth without toil, and that 
there was some check to their lawless habits 
abroad as at home. 

Still, with so much against him, Columbus 
kept his ground. Accusers and enemies seemed 
to be charmed away by his noble presence and 
lofty enthusiasm. As in the convent at Palos, 
ten years before, it was difficult for those who 
heard him not to believe what he hoped for so 
confidently, and pictured in such glowing terms. 
One of his recent theories made Hispaniola the 
Ophir of the ancients. A region had been dis- 
covered, shortly before he left the island, more 

S 2 



260 COLUMBUS. 

rich in gold than any that had been previously 
explored ; there were remains, too, apparently of 
mines that had been opened and left ; then his 
imagination travelled back to the reign of Solo- 
mon, and he made sure that from this very spot 
the gold had been transported which adorned the 
Temple at Jerusalem. Cuba had a prominent 
place in his narrative. He described his adven- 
tures on its shores, — its natural beauties, — its 
vast extent, — its promise of wealth, — and then, 
with scraps from Marco Polo, and well-known pas- 
sages of Holy Writ, — all made to agree with his 
own discoveries and teeming fancies, — he dressed 
up a tale which captivated his royal and noble 
hearers, and gave him the undisputed victory 
over his unworthy assailants. 
Prepares for More ships were promised him, and 
third voyage, abundant resources for prosecuting his 
enterprizes ; but again, as in former days, he had 
to encounter harassing delays, to stand up against 
intriguing courtiers, to wait for his handful of 
vessels while a whole fleet was employed to bring 
home a prince's bride, to bend his noble spirit to 
all that was most humbling and most trying-, 
while he begged only of his Sovereigns to be true 
to their promise, and to exalt their own greatness. 
Two years were thus spent, and, at the end of 



COLUMBUS. 261 

them, vexed, wearied, but still un- May . 30thj 
broken, Columbus sailed on his third 1498 - 
voyage of discovery. 

This voyage was made memorable by the dis- 
covery of the Continent of America. Columbus 
determined to take a more Southerly course than 
he had taken hitherto, and accordingly steered 
South- West from the Cape de Yerde Islands till 
he got within five degrees of the Equator. There 
the heat of the climate became intolerable; the 
Admiral himself was seriously affected in health ; 
and the crew had before their minds all they had 
heard of the terrors of a tropical summer ; so their 
course was shifted to the North- West, and keep- 
ing steadily in that track they sailed between 
Trinidad and the main land of South America, 
landing on the shores of both, and so T , 

° ' Lands on 

enlarging the great navigator's field of American 

Continent. 

discovery greatly beyond its former 
limits. As usual, he had his theory to suit the 
new facts which had recently come under his 
observation; and, as usual, it contained some 
shrewd conjectures along with strange, and almost 
childish, fancies. The immense body of fresh 
water which was poured into the gulf of Paria, 
freshening and sweetening the surrounding ocean, 
s 3 



262 COLUMBUS. 

satisfied him that the mouth of some far-flowing 
river must be near, and that a Continent was 
wanted to supply room for its lengthened course. 
As truly, therefore, as if he had seen the lower 
half of the great western hemisphere mapped 
out, he inferred that the points of land which he 
had seen thereabouts were parts of one vast con- 
tinent, occupying the unexplored space on both 
sides of the Equator, and reaching far towards 
the southern pole. Then, to account for the 
fresh verdure, and soft, delicious air, in so low a 
latitude, where scorching heat might rather have 
been expected, he made sure that the surface of 
the earth was elevated in one direction, so that, 
instead of being a perfect sphere, it had a pear-like 
shape. He was nearing the apex, he thought, and 
the gentle breezes, which just fanned his sails, gave 
token of the higher, purer region to which his 
course had conducted him. The summit he ima- 
gined to be under the equinoctial line, in the 
centre of the continent which he was now coast- 
ing.* There he placed the garden of Eden ; and 
the great rivers which flowed into the surrounding 
ocean he supposed to issue from the fountain of 
the tree of life. The continent, we know, was 
there ; already had he set his foot on it, as he 
* See NOTE (V). 



COLUMBUS. 263 

deserved to do. The great river was there, too, 
the first land he saw being that which is inter- 
sected by the branches of the Oronoco. The rest, 
we know, was fable ; but such fables amused the 
world's wisest men four centuries ago; and if 
Columbus was not free from the common delu- 
sion, at any rate he did more than any man whom 
the world has seen to undeceive his fellows and 
give them sounder notions in geography. 

Gladly would he have prosecuted Returns to 
his discoveries in that quarter; but Hispamola. 
again he was driven to Hispaniola for supplies. 
He was suffering, moreover, from a complaint in 
his eyes, — eyes which had done more service, pro- 
bably, in six eventful years, watching by night 
and searching the distant horizon by day, than 
had ever been done by human sight before. Ex- 
hausted, crippled by gout which had been brought 
on by the tropical heats, and almost blind, he 
landed for a third time from Europe on the island 
which was more his home than any other spot, 
hoping to find the repose he wanted, and assured 
of sympathy and support from his brother Bar- 
tholomew. But, alas ! rest was not for Columbus 
in the Old World or the New. From the day he 
sailed on his first voyage to his dying hour, his 
life was one of unintermitted labour, and almost 

s4 



264 COLUMBUS. 

unceasing vexation. He enriched his adopted 
country ; he enlarged the field of observation for 
all who took an interest in man and his doings ; 
he developed the resources of commerce to an 
unknown extent ; he stirred the mind and heart 
of Christendom, we may say, by throwing open 
such a sphere for enterprize to the strongest 
intellects and most daring spirits of every Eu- 
ropean nation ; but his own harvest was that 
which has so often been reaped by the greatest 
men, — scanty thanks and bitter envyings from 
their own generation, who could not appreciate 
their motives, or measure their services. 

Disorders in Bartholomew, during the absence of 
his absence, j^g b ro ther, had displayed the vigour 
and prudence of an enlightened governor, but there 
had been so much of trouble and confusion that 
the return of Columbus was most seasonable and 
welcome. Turbulent spirits had taken advantage 
of his altered position to bring his authority into 
disrepute, and had formed themselves into hostile 
factions which set all government at defiance. 
The ringleader in sedition was one Eoldan, who 
had been raised by Columbus from a humble 
rank to the place of chief judge of the island. 
All ties of gratitude were broken through, and 



COLUMBUS. 265 

obligations of a public kind were utterly disre- 
garded, while be endeavoured to gather a party 
which should make him independent of the Ad- 
miral and all his loyal supporters. 

With fair professions on his lips, — avowing 
himself the redresser of Indian wrongs, and a 
faithful subject of the crown of Spain, — declaring 
to his followers that he would submit himself to 
the Admiral without reserve, but would own no 
meaner master, — he soon had a party of devoted 
adherents, consisting mainly of those who hated 
restraint and longed for plunder. Bartholomew 
had tried mild measures at one time, and then, 
when the insolence of Roldan and his party grew 
with every fresh overture for peace, had pro- 
ceeded to outlaw them as traitors. But the 
country was too wide, and the Spanish rule too 
imperfectly established, to enable him to pursue 
and seize them; so threats of punishment did 
but drive the rebels to wilder courses, and made 
them reckless oppressors of the natives at one 
time, and their pretended champions at another. 
The payment of tribute in gold had become a 
heavy burden to many of them, and promises of 
exemption had an inviting sound from men who 
were in arms against the existing authorities. 
Others, too, seeing that dissensions had broken 



266 COLUMBUS. 

out among the strangers, thought their time was 
come for throwing off the yoke; so with two 
caciques in succession the Adelantado had to 
renew a contest which ended in their capture, but 
left behind it a more wide-spread feeling of hos- 
tility to the Spanish rule. 

Such was the island in which Columbus sought 
the repose he needed. His first measure was to 
give his public sanction to all that Bartholomew 
had done; his next, to offer a full pardon to 
Eoldan upon his instant submission ; and a politic 
proclamation was issued at the same time, offering 
a free passage home to all who were tired of the 
colony. The strength of the rebels, however, 
had been increased by the arrival of some vessels, 
which had been dispatched by Columbus from 
the Canary Islands, and touched first, most in- 
opportunely, at the part of the island which was 
in their possession. Representing himself as the 
officer in command under the Adelantado, Roldan 
had procured from them arms and stores, and had 
corrupted many among the crews before his cheat 
was detected. Thus reinforced, when overtures 
came from Columbus, he assumed a bolder tone, 
and, instead of suing for pardon, demanded ex- 
travagant terms for himself and his followers. 



COLUMBUS. 267 

The Admiral saw himself defied by one of his own 
creatures on the ground which seemed to be his 
by a special right ; and, what was yet more 
humbling, when he summoned all loyal Spaniards 
in the new settlement of St. Domingo to arms, 
he found that a little handful gathered under his 
banner, while great numbers, on one plea or 
another, held themselves aloof. Such a crisis 
could only be met by concession and compromise. 
Jealous of his own rights, and yet more jealous 
for his Sovereigns' honour, Columbus was com- 
pelled, in spite of himself, to make a treaty of 
peace with rebels who deserved no mercy. Rol- 
dan was restored to his office of Judge, while 
lands and slaves were assigned to his followers. 
It was stipulated, moreover, that they should be 
permitted to claim service from the caciques in 
the cultivation of their estates, in lieu of the 
tribute which had been paid directly to the 
crown. A humbling surrender for a noble spirit ! 
but everything must be hazarded, Columbus 
thought, to restore peace to the colony; and 
paltry disputes with underlings and mischief- 
makers must not be permitted to hold him back 
from that career of discovery which had been so 
hopefully begun. 



268 COLUMBUS. 

Other troubles of a similar kind suc- 

A.D. 1499. 

ceeded. Ojeda was the next insurgent, 
and Roldan, anxious to retrieve his reputation 
for loyalty, proved the Admiral's most devoted 
auxiliary. Disaffection in the colony was se- 
conded by treachery in the mother- country ; for 
a certain Bishop Fonseca, President of the 
Council for the Indies, having received Colum- 
bus's letters and charts, describing his outward 
voyage, showed them to his friend Ojeda, and 
between them the scheme was contrived of fol- 
lowing in the track of Columbus, and outstripping 
him in the race of discovery. Four ships, there- 
fore, were fitted out by the authority of Fonseca, 
and a letter of licence was given without any 
reference to the Sovereigns. With these Ojeda 
had explored six hundred miles of the Northern 
coast of South America, beginning from the mouths 
of the Oronoco. Having touched at the western 
side of Hispaniola, without seeking any communi- 
cation with the authorities of the island, he was 
challenged by Roldan in the name of Columbus, 
and after dissembling for a while, and promising 
a speedy visit to St. Domingo, threw off the 
mask and assumed the vacant post of rebel-chief- 
tain. Gathering to his standard numbers who 
longed for change, and many more who had been 



COLUMBUS. 269 

punished for their crimes, he proposed to them to 
march in a body to the seat of government, and 
there call the brothers to account for the accumu- 
lated evils which had afflicted the colony. Few- 
were prepared for so decisive and perilous an 
enterprize, and at last, by the dexterous manage- 
ment of Roldan, Ojeda was persuaded to leave 
the island. Presently, however, almost before 
the coast was clear of this dangerous intruder, 
another conspiracy was formed under another 
Spaniard of distinction, and the incidents of a 
love-story, with a beautiful daughter of Caonabo 
for the heroine, connect themselves with a deadly 
feud between Roldan and a more favoured suitor. 
The private quarrel grew to be a public one, and 
a desperate party were concerting measures to 
seize Columbus and his zealous lieutenant, when 
they were surprised by the Admiral in the dead 
of the night, and their chief, by a measure of 
rare but well-timed severity, was consigned to 
execution. 

It was hard and trying discipline for one like 
Columbus to have his time thus frittered away, 
and his spirit vexed and wearied, when his mind 
was teeming with great projects which might well 
fill up the remnant of his days. The seventh 
year had now expired since his first triumphant 



270 COLUMBUS. 

return to Spain, and in that time he had solemnly 
vowed to heaven that he would contribute from 
the profits of his government enough to fit out an 
army of fifty thousand infantry and five thousand 
cavalry for a last Crusade, More than sixty 
years of his eventful course were run ; and what 
hope was there that he could finish his work, and 
transmit to posterity the legacy he longed to 
leave with them, if his life were thus consumed 
in putting down insurgent caciques, or making 
terms with his own refractory followers ? 

Heavier trials, however, were in 
Hostile „ , . TT . . , 

party at store for him. His enemies were busy 

ome ' in Spain, and it was no one's vocation, 

and no one's interest, to defend him there. His 
successes in the colony did but strengthen the 
case against him. Defeated rebels took their 
revenge by carrying home complaints and accusa- 
tions, which found willing listeners, and met with 
no reply. The men, whose excesses he was 
bound to punish, had influential friends, many of 
them, about the court, and by them the malicious 
charge was invented and propagated that Colum- 
bus was aiming at an independent sovereignty, or 
would transfer to the highest bidder this jewel of 
the Spanish crown. Fonseca was ever at hand 



COLUMBUS. 271 

to give force and currency to all that might 
damage the great subject with his Sovereigns; 
Ferdinand was of a jealous temper, and only too 
ready to distrust the man whose services could 
not be repaid or forgotten ; Isabella herself, 
assailed from so many quarters, began to waver. 
To her credit be it spoken, the supposed wrongs 
of the natives weighed more with her than the 
clamour of her own complaining subjects. Many 
of the returned followers of Roldan had brought 
home slaves assigned to them under the articles 
of capitulation to which Columbus was forced. 
Among them were the daughters of caciques, 
who had been seduced or carried from their 
homes, and who were the impatient or willing 
mistresses of many a Spanish gentleman. Her 
sensibilities were touched by a spectacle like 
this ; her woman's heart kindled with indignation 
for the wrongs of her sex ; and as the offenders 
laid all the blame on the Admiral, she not only 
condemned him for his inhuman conduct in this 
particular, but was more ready to believe the 
stories which were circulated so freely to his dis- 
advantage. She no longer opposed the measures 
suggested by the hostile faction. A Commissioner 
was appointed to proceed to Hispaniola, and in- 
vestigate the charges on the spot; Francisco 



272 COLUMBUS. 

Bobadilla was the person chosen for this office ; 
and authority was given to supersede Columbus 
if he should find them true. 

Bobadilla at The name of this man has become 

St. Domingo. ft bye _ word f i n f amv . He ranks 

with the little men who are known to posterity 
as having crossed the path of great ones, and, in 
return for the pitiful triumph of an hour, have 
contempt or execration heaped upon their me- 
mories. The accusers of Columbus were with him 
Aug. 23rd, before he landed. When everything 
should have been done to spare the feelings 
of the Admiral, everything was done to bring him 
into contempt. Bobadilla began by demanding 
that the prisoners who had headed the last in- 
surrection should be delivered to him for custody ; 
and when Diego Columbus, who was in com- 
mand at St. Domingo, refused to take a step so 
injurious and insulting to his brother, the Com- 
missioner, sent out by his Sovereigns to institute 
a judicial enquiry, collected the sailors from the 
ships and the rabble from the streets, and, having 
broken open the prison, carried off the insurgents 
in triumph. Columbus himself was absent. By 
grant from his Sovereigns he was Governor of all 
the Spanish possessions in the New World, and 
Admiral of all the seas which had been discovered 



COLUMBUS, 273 

by himself. His office was hereditary, moreover ; 
and he had privileges and immunities of various 
kinds such as were seldom granted to a subject. 
Yet while he was still in possession of all his 
dignities, — before the court had sat, or the charges 
had been heard, — Bobadilla took up his residence 
in the house of Columbus, seized upon his pro- 
perty, took possession of all his papers, and 
lightened the imposts due from the colonists to 
the government, over which he had no more 
jurisdiction than over the royal domains of Spain, 

Columbus, when he was satisfied Submission 
respecting the Commissioner's autho- of Columbus. 
rity, yielded him implicit obedience. He was 
summoned to St. Domingo, and, without retinue 
or body-guard, he straightway went thither. He 
was ordered into irons, and took this last indig- 
nity without a murmur. He understood his own 
position too well to provoke an unseemly contest. 
He wasted no words on the unworthy instrument 
of a malignant faction. He thought of his royal 
mistress, and felt sure that her orders had been 
misinterpreted, or her judgment swayed by false- 
hood. His two brothers were prisoners like 
himself, — Bartholomew, who might have led an 
army against Bobadilla, having received express 
T 



274 COLUMBUS. 

orders from Columbus to submit himself to the 
royal mandate. 

Then came the mock trial. Miscreants, whom 
the Admiral had spared or punished, flocked to 
the place of concourse with their tale of slander. 
Nothing was sifted, and the most improbable tales 
were received with eagerness. " The Admiral 
had kept the natives in darkness that he might 
make a gain of them by selling heathen men into 
slavery ; " — " The Admiral had first provoked 
loyal subjects to resistance by acts of tyranny, 
and then punished them with unsparing severity;" 
— " He pretended zeal for his Sovereign and for 
the interests of Spain ; but all was false and 
hollow ; he told only what suited himself; he had 
collected untold treasure in pearls off the coast of 
Paria, and divulged but half the truth that he 
might drive a better bargain with the crown." 
Of course, an enquiry thus conducted could have 
but one issue. A case was made out which de- 
termined Bobadilla to send Columbus to Spain ; 
and for security, — as if he had been an untamed 
savage, or a convicted desperado, instead of being 
a man of habitual self-command, a lover of peace, 
and of tried and devoted loyalty, — he must con- 
tinue to wear his chains. He wore them proudly, 
and would not put them off. The commander of 



^ COLUMBUS. 275 

the vessel in which he sailed felt as a generous 
man would feel at having such a prisoner under 
his charge, and offered to set him at liberty when 
they were fairly out at sea. " No," said Colum- 
bus, " their Majesties commanded me by letter to 
submit to whatever Bobadilla should order in 
their name. By their authority he has put upon 
me these chains. I will wear them until they 
shall order them to be taken off; and I will after- 
wards preserve them as a memorial of my services 
and their reward." He kept his promise. The 
golden crowns of Castile and Aragon would have 
been well given for those few pounds of iron, if 
the story of Columbus's degradation might have 
been buried with them. But he chose that it 
should live. " I saw the fetters," says his son, in 
writing his life, " always hanging in his cabinet ; 
and he requested that they might be laid by his 
side when dead." 



The news that Columbus had arrived . . 

Arrives m 

as a prisoner at Cadiz was received Spain as a 

. prisoner. 

throughout Spam with a burst of in- 
dignation. As a proscribed man, he would not 
venture to address the King or Queen ; but he 
sent a detailed vindication of his conduct to a 
lady of the Court, who, as nurse in the royal 
T 2 



276 COLUMBUS. 

household, had ready access to Isabella. Very 
pathetic, yet devout as usual, are the opening 
sentences : — " Although it is a novelty for me to 
complain of the ill-usage of the world, it is never- 
theless no novelty for the world to practise it. 
Innumerable are the contests I have had with it, 
and I have resisted all attacks until now, when I 
find that neither strength nor prudence is of any 
avail to me : it has cruelly reduced me to the 
lowest ebb. Hope in Him who has created us 
all is my support. His assistance I have always 
found near at hand." Then, after recounting his 
services and his usage, he shows how unjust any 
decision must be which left out of account the 
difficulties of a position like his. " God is just," 
he says, " and He will in due time make known 
all that has taken place and why it has taken 
place. I am judged in Spain, as a governor who 
had been sent to a province or city under regular 
o-overnment, and where the laws could be executed 
without fear of endangering the public weal ; and 
in this I receive enormous wrong. I ought to be 
judged as a Captain sent from Spain to the Indies, 
to conquer a nation numerous and warlike, with 
customs and religion altogether different to ours ; 
a people who dwell in the mountains, without 
regular habitations for themselves or for us ; and 



COLUMBUS. 277 

where, by the Divine Will, I have subdued 
another world to the dominion of the King and 
Queen, our sovereigns ; in consequence of which, 
Spain, that used to be called poor, is now the 
most wealthy of kingdoms. I ought to be judged 
as a Captain, who for so many years has borne 
arms, never quitting them for an instant. I 
ought to be judged by Cavaliers who have them- 
selves won the meed of victory; by gentlemen 
indeed, and not by the lawyers: at least, so it 
would have been among the Greeks and Romans, 
or any modern nation in which exists so much 
nobility as in Spain ; for under any other judg- 
ment I receive great injury ; because in the Indies 
there is neither civil right nor judgment -seat." 

Like most that came from the pen or the lips 
of this illustrious man, this memorial carried con- 
viction to those who heard it, dispersed the cloud 
of prejudice which had gathered round his name, 
and refuted, by anticipation, the long list of 
Bobadilla's charges. These do not seem even to 
have been investigated. Columbus's services 
were unquestioned; his mistakes, if any, might 
well be forgiven. There were tears on the face 
of the Queen when she received him ; and the 
hardy veteran, who had braved wind and storm 
in so many seas, who had met calumny and ill— 

T 3 



278 COLUMBUS. 

usage with an unruffled countenance, was melted 
into softness by her returning kindness, and when 
he rose from his knees was for some time unable 
to speak. 

Good words were given in abundance. Apo- 
logies were tendered for the indignities he had 
suffered, and were willingly accepted; but his 
Princedom, to his mortification and sm*prise, was 
not restored to him. Fresh discoveries on the 
South American Continent by other parties had 
shown Ferdinand what was included in the terms 
of the original grant to Columbus. The gift was 
too vast ; the subject would be too like a sove- 
reign ; no better opportunity could be found of 
revoking what had been rashly bestowed ; if he 
should retire, in disgust, from the service of Spain, 
his successes had put others on the right track, 
and his place might easily be supplied. An in- 
terval of repose, therefore, was recommended ; a 
lengthened absence from Hispaniola would give 
time for bad passions to subside, and would pro- 
mote the peace and welfare of the colony. In 
the meantime, another governor would supersede 
the incompetent Bobadilla, and do his best to 
bring the refractory to submission. 
Superseded Accordingly a man of the name of 
as Governor. Qvando was appointed, and sailed with 



COLUMBUS. 279 

thirty vessels and two thousand five hundred 
men. This might be good policy for the jealous 
monarch ; but to be displaced by any one on his 
own ground, — to be kept in Spain while others 
were turning his great discoveries to account, — 
was hardly better than captivity and disgrace in 
the eyes of Columbus. Besides, each year of 
inactivity was another year's delay in the execu- 
tion of his grand scheme with reference to the 
Holy Land. If his own resources were cut off, 
he must, at least, be faithful to the spirit of his 
vow, and stir up others to take the great w T ork in 
hand. So his leisure time was devoted to the 
composition of a treatise, addressed to the Spanish 
Sovereigns, in which what he had done, and what 
he longed to do, were mixed up with scraps of 
prophecy and quotations from the fathers, all 
pointing to the future triumphs of the Church in 
the conversion of the Gentiles, or the final over- 
throw of the Mussulman power. Spain had 
begun well (this was his favourite theme), and 
would win for herself immortal honour, if she 
continued in the van of the Christian army. 

While Columbus was thus occupied, 
rumours came to him from other lands Prepares 
which made him restless to be again forfourtl1 

o voyage. 

upon the waters. Numbers were fol- 

T 4 



280 COLUMBUS. 

lowing in the track of Yasco de Gama, and the 
commerce of India seemed likely to be the prize 
of Portugal, which was entering heartily and 
zealously upon a new career of discovery. " Let 
them reach the land of spices by sailing East" 
thought Columbus ; i{ I will reach it by sailing 
across the Western Ocean. I have found land to 
the North, and land to the South; between them 
I doubt not is the strait to which I have not yet 
been able to penetrate; but let me have good 
ships and willing crews, and the flag of Spain 
shall yet wave in the Indian seas." For this 
purpose four small vessels were entrusted to him, 
May 9th, an d> a ^ the age of sixty-six, nearly ten 
1502. years after his first voyage, he started 

for the fourth time across the Atlantic. His 
brother, Bartholomew, was his companion in this 
voyage, and a valuable helper he proved under 
circumstances of extreme peril and difficulty. 

Columbus had received orders not 

Adventures 

offHispa- to touch at Hispaniola for fear of 
iiiola. ...•-, 4 t 

exciting jealousy. A strange order it 

must have sounded to him when he thought of 

his first voyage to its shores, and the promises 

made to him before and since. Obedience was 

the rule of his life; but one vessel out of his 



COLUMBUS. 281 

little fleet proved a bad sailer, and, to exchange it, 
he made for the well-known port of St. Domingo. 
On his arrival there he found a great fleet, which 
had carried out Ovando, ready to sail for Spain. 
Bobadilla was in it, and Roldan with many of his 
traitorous adherents, and a rich cargo of gold. 
Of this some was intended as a present to the 
Sovereigns, and a good deal belonged to the 
unprincipled settlers who had not scrupled to 
amass it by exactions and cruelties of the harshest 
kind. One little vessel, it is said, the weakest of 
the whole, had four thousand pieces of gold upon 
it, which Columbus's agent was remitting to 
Spain, a scanty portion of the revenue which had 
been pledged to him by the royal word. The 
Admiral's experienced eye foresaw an approaching 
storm, and he sent a message on shore asking 
shelter for his little squadron, and warning 
Ovando that it would be most perilous for the 
fleet to sail under such circumstances. The 
request and the caution were alike disregarded. 
On his own seas the old man's experience went 
for nothing ; in his own harbour he was denied a 
refuge. His heart naturally swelled within him 
at this indignity, and his comment on it, in his 
letter to his Sovereigns describing his fourth 
voyage, is touching and characteristic : — " What 



282 COLUMBUS. 

man was ever born, not even excepting Job, who 
would not have been ready to die of despair at 
finding himself, as I then was, in anxious fear for 
my own safety, and that of my son, my brother 
and my friends, and yet refused permission either 
to land, or to put into harbour, on the shores 
which by God's mercy I had gained for Spain 
with so much toil and danger?" The storm 
came down in its fury; Bobadilla's fleet, which 
had ventured out to sea, was lost, with all on board ; 
and men, who knew -how the lost treasures had 
been got together, naturally thought that the spoil 
and the spoilers had gone down under a curse. 

The ship freighted with Columbus's store got 
safe to Spain; and when his prophecy of bad 
weather was talked of in connexion with its ter- 
rible fulfilment, and his little vessel had survived 
the storm which had engulphed his enemies and 
their booty, some thought that the Admiral's 
good fortune had come back to him after a season 
of depression, while the superstitious seamen con- 
jectured that spells and enchantments were at his 
command, and that he had proved his power over 
the raging elements. 

In July Columbus sailed for the 
Sails for . 

South continent of South America, little 

thinking that two years would elapse 



COLUMBUS. 283 

between his departure and his return. Yet so it 
proved ; and in a life crowded with vexations and 
disappointments, it may be questioned whether 
he ever spent so many toilsome, anxious months 
together. Every thing was against him. Winds 
and waves seemed to bar up his progress. Be- 
tween Jamaica and Terra Firma he " contended," 
he says, " against a fearful contrary current for 
sixty days, and during that time only made seventy 
leagues." " For eighty-eight days," he adds 
shortly afterwards, " did this fearful tempest con- 
tinue, during which I was at sea, and saw neither 
sun nor stars."* On an island a few leagues 
from the coast of Honduras he fell in with a 
cacique, who pointed to the West as the land of 
wealth, and said that in that direction he would 
find a country rich in gold, and a powerful people. 
Had he listened to this advice, a few days' sail 
might have carried him to Yucatan, and his old 
age, probably, would have been cheered with 
the discovery of Mexico and the sight of the 
Pacific. But he was too busy hunting for the 
strait through which he hoped to sail for India, 
and he refused to turn aside for any secondary 
object. So, descrying some mountains in the 
distance, he made for the main land, and between 

* See NOTE (X). 



284 COLUMBUS. 

Cape Honduras and the gulf of Darien he spent 
four months in searching the coast, making sure 
that the longed-for passage to the South could 
not be far off. Still the weather was an almost 
unceasing tempest; strong currents carried the 
vessels far out of their course ; enormous water- 
spouts at one time, and shoals of ravenous sharks 
at another, roused the superstitious fears of the 
sailors. When he landed, too, he found the natives 
no weak, effeminate race, but hardier and more 
intelligent than those of the first-discovered 
islands, better armed and more quick to use their 
weapons. At last, when Columbus turned, the 
wind turned too, and with some difficulty a haven 
was reached on the Yeragua coast, to which he 
was attracted by the report of its gold mines; 
k d 1503 there, on the 6th of January, the feast 
of the Epiphany, he cast anchor in a 
river which was named Bethlehem in honour of 

the dav. 

j 

Distresses "^° P eace was f° un d on shore, how- 

on the ever, any more than on the stormy 

Continent. J J 

ocean, for the great explorer. A set- 
tlement was talked of, and it was agreed between 
the brothers that Bartholomew should remain in 
Yeragua, while Columbus sailed to Hispaniola 
for supplies and men. But their plans were 



COLUMBUS. 285 

baffled by a warlike cacique, who resented their 
intrusion ; and after alternate successes and de- 
feats,— after being captured once, and escaping by 
a plunge into the sea, — he fairly beat off the 
strangers. This was a great disappointment; for 
the country was reported to be rich beyond any 
they had seen, and Columbus, ever wandering- 
back to some bygone age, and slow to believe 
that he had discovered what no books had de- 
scribed, revelled in the thought that he had 
reached the Aurea Chersonesus of Josephus, from 
whence gold had been procured for the building 
of the temple. Little did he dream while such 
visions filled his mind, that less than a hundred 
miles of land-travelling would have carried him 
across the isthmus, on which he wintered, to the 
shore of the Pacific, and would have revealed to 
him a new Ocean beyond, stretching from the 
newly found America to the long-sought India. 

As it was, he left the South American Con- 
tinent a defeated and desponding man. Oue of 
his captains had fallen in conflict with the natives, 
and many brave men besides. Health and spirits 
gave way for a time ; but a mind enthusiastic as 
his rose continually aboA^e depression, and ga- 
thered new materials for hope from his feverish 
dreams. His own belief was that, at this time of 



286 COLUMBUS. 

his deepest sorrow, a message was graciously sent 
from heaven to keep him from despair. The 
passage is too remarkable not to be quoted in his 
own words. " Groaning with exhaustion," he 
says, " I fell asleep, and heard a compassionate 
voice address me thus : — 'O fool, and slow to 
believe and to serve thy God, the God of all. 
What did He more for Moses or for David, his 
servant, than for thee ? From thine infancy he 
has kept thee under his constant and watchful 
care, When thou didst arrive at an age which 
suited His designs respecting thee, He brought 
wonderful renown to thy name throughout all 
the land. He gave thee for thine own the Indies, 
which form so rich a portion of the world, and 
thou hast divided them as it pleased thee, for He 
gave thee power to do so. He gave thee, also, 
the keys of those barriers of the ocean sea which 
were closed with such mighty chains. Turn to 
Him, and acknowledge thine error; His mercy 
is infinite. Thine old age shall not prevent thee 
from accomplishing any great undertaking. Abra- 
ham had exceeded a hundred years when he begat 

Isaac ; nor was Sarah young His acts 

answer to his words, and it is his custom to per- 
form all His promises with interest.' " From his 
dreams we learn what was the subject of his 



COLUMBUS. 287 

waking thoughts. Advancing years, and enfeebled 
health, made him fear that he should never live 
to accomplish the greatest of his schemes; yet, 
even then, with the full persuasion that he, like 
God's faithful servants of old, had been raised up 
to do a special work, he kept alive his hope of 
prolonged service and of yet greater triumphs by 
recalling the years of the patriarch when the child 
of promise was given to his prayers. 

The first of May found him sailing 

J ° Eeaches 

northwards, with his only two re- Jamaica, 
maining caravels, for Hispaniola. He 
was driven, however, by weather, first to Cuba, 
and afterwards to Jamaica, reaching the latter 
island on Midsummer day, with his vessels no 
longer in a sailing condition. There for a whole 
year he was kept, like a caged eagle, forty leagues 
only from his own beloved island. Short as the 
voyage was for a larger vessel, it was too distant 
to be safely undertaken in a canoe, and nothing 
better could be procured in the island. Columbus 
saw the urgency of the danger. He had no place 
of defence but the two shattered vessels fastened 
together on shore. The natives were friendly at 
present, and brought in supplies of food in ex- 
change for trinkets; but a single quarrel might 
lead to strangeness and suspicion. Something, 



288 COLUMBUS. 

he felt, must be risked for the common safety ; so 
he sounded the best and bravest of his followers, 
one Diego Mendez, as to his willingness to cross 
to Hispaniola in a canoe, and seek assistance from 
Ovando. The man was startled, at first, and pro- 
tested that such a venture would be madness ; 
but soon a nobler spirit prevailed, and he under- 
took the service. " I have but one life to lose," 
he said, to Columbus, " and I am willing to ven- 
ture it for you and that of my countrymen here. 
God, who has protected me so often, I trust, will 
protect me now." He went, and found the ex- 
pedition, as he feared, one of extremest peril ; but 
a brave heart, and first-rate skill, and thoughts of 
the great Columbus cooped up in Jamaica, bore 
him on through every difficulty. Forty leagues 
of ocean, — twice as many, as he coasted Hispa- 
niola against, adverse currents, — and then fifty 
more over mountains and through forests from 
St. Domingo to Xaragua, — brought him to 
Ovando's presence ; but the zeal of the captain 
contrasted strangely with the indifference of the 
governor, who gave him fair words, but nothing 
else, and took no steps for the liberation of Co- 
lumbus. 

Letter to the During this period Columbus was 
oveieigns. p art } v occupied with writing, for the 



COLUMBUS. 289 

information of his Sovereigns, a report of what 
had happened to him since he left Spain. The 
document is a very precious one, and shows us 
much of what was passing in his mind while he 
paced the shores of Jamaica, looking Eastward 
for a distant sail, or sat, sick in body and sick at 
heart, on board his shattered vessel. With his 
usual modesty he speaks of all that he had done, 
and with his usual forbearance of all that he had 
suffered ; but his swelling heart finds vent some- 
times in lamentations which sound like reproaches, 
as he contrasts his own losses and distresses with 
the gain and glory which his discoveries had 
brought to Spain. The conclusion is full of 
dignity, but more deeply affecting than anything 
that has fallen from his pen. " Such is my fate," 
he says, " that twenty years of service, through 
which I passed with so much toil and danger, 
have profited me nothing ; and at this very day 
I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call 
my own. If I wish to eat or sleep, I have no- 
where to go to but the inn or tavern, and most 

times lack wherewith to pay the bill I 

have not a hair upon me that is not grey ; my 
body is infirm ; and all that was left to me, as 
well as to my brothers, has been taken away and 
sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great 
u 



290 COLUMBUS. 

dishonour The honest devotedness I have 

always shown to your Majesties' service, and the 
unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, 
will not allow my soul to keep silence, however 
much I may wish it. I implore your Highnesses 
to forgive my complaints. I am indeed in as 
ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I 
have wept over others ; — may Heaven now have 
mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me ! 
With regard to temporal things, I have not even 
a blanca for an offering ; and in spiritual things, 
I have ceased here in the Indies from observing 
the prescribed forms of religion. Solitary in my 
trouble, sick, and in daily expectation of death, 
surrounded by millions of hostile savages full of 
cruelty, and thus separated from the blessed 
sacraments of our holy Church, how will my soul 
be forgotten if it be separated from the body in 
this foreign land ! Weep for me, whoever has 
charity, truth and justice. I did not come out 
on this voyage to gain to myself honour or 
wealth ; this is a certain fact, for at that time all 
hope of such a thing was dead. I do not lie 
when I say that I went to your Highnesses with 
honest purpose of heart, and sincere zeal in your 
cause. I humbly beseech your Highnesses that, 
if it please God to rescue me from this place, you 



COLUMBUS. 291 

will graciously sanction my pilgrimage to Rome 
and other holy places. May the Holy Trinity have 
you in their keeping, and add to your greatness ! " 

Months went by, and no succour Troubles in 
came. Mendez on the wide sea, bat- the island * 
tling with the elements, and keeping up the 
courage of the Spaniards and Indians who navi- 
gated his slight canoe, was a happy man compared 
with his great commander, left on that unfriendly 
shore, surrounded with barbarous tribes who 
might turn enemies in a day, and, what was far 
worse, harassed and endangered by a formidable 
mutiny among his followers. The first 
of January found him a captive still ; 
and, on the second, discontents, like those which 
pursued him everywhere, broke out into words 
and deeds of violence. A leader of the name of 
Porras, — as usual, one who had received special 
kindness from Columbus, — headed an insurrec- 
tionary party, and carried with him a large 
portion of the little company who remained on 
the island. The Admiral himself was sick, and 
of those who stayed with him, some were unfit 
for service. Happily Bartholomew was there ; 
and all the resources of his active mind, with the 
coolness and courage which never failed him, were 
u 2 



292 COLUMBUS. 

necessary for the common safety. Without his 
help, it is almost certain that Columbus must have 
sunk, and found a grave in Jamaica, — being left 
to starve by Spaniards, or cut off by a sudden 
attack of the natives. 

Eclipse of Porras and his crew, with almost 

the Moon. diabolical w i c k e dness, had done all 
they could to rouse the hostility of the natives 
against Columbus, hoping to drive him off the 
island ; and the result of their endeavours was 
soon seen in failing supplies of food. Famine 
stared him in the face, and but for an ingenious 
device, suggested by an approaching eclipse of the 
moon, he and his party must have perished. The 
caciques were summoned to a conference, and 
through an interpreter Columbus addressed them 
in words like these : — "I and my people worship 
a God who has his dwelling in the skies. He 
protects us and takes care of us, and is angry 
with those who do us wrong. Now He is angry 
with you, because you will not give us food. If 
you do not believe my words, look at the moon to- 
night, and you will see it grow dark before your 
eyes. This will be a token to you of God's coming 
judgments." The night came, and the moon rose 
in her full-orbed beauty; but presently a little 
speck of darkness was seen, and slowly the shadow 



COLUMBUS. 293 

stole over the broad disc till her silvery brightness 
was all gone, and the natives saw through the 
gloom only a ball of dusky red. Amazed and 
terrified they fell at Columbus's feet, promising 
abundant supplies. " Pray for us," they cried, 
" that evil may not come upon us, and we will 
bring you food in plenty henceforth." The Ad- 
miral retired for a while into his cabin, and 
the shore and forest resounded with the wailings 
of the savages ; but presently he came forth and 
assured them that the divine displeasure had. 
passed away. " You will see the moon bright 
again this very night," he said ; " so be true to 
your promises, and dismiss your fears." Then 
came the look of wonder, — the pause of expect- 
ation, — and the universal shout of joy. The 
artifice, which, under the circumstances, no man 
will judge severely, was rewarded with unbounded 
confidence and unstinted plenty while the stran- 
gers remained upon the island. 

Eight months had passed since Men- Message 
dez sailed, when a small vessel was fromHis- 

paniola. 
seen one day nearing the shore. A 

boat put off, and brought a letter to Columbus 

from Ovando, with a barrel of wine and a side of 

bacon. The language of the Governor's letter 

was as insulting as his gift. He could spare no 

u 3 



294 COLUMBUS. 

vessel from Hispaniola large enough to bring off 
Columbus and his people, but he was greatly con- 
cerned to hear of the Admiral's misfortunes, and 
hoped soon to be able to relieve him. The officer 
in command delivered this very singular dispatch, 
waited for a reply, returned to his ship without 
seeking further conference, and sailed straight 
back again. Posterity must think, as the men of 
Hispaniola thought, that Ovando hoped to hear 
that his great rival was removed out of his way. 
His cruel delays had been tolerated too long, and 
when the news came back that Columbus was 
alive, hoping and waiting through weary months 
for the relief which never came, public indigna- 
tion was roused at last, and compelled the Go- 
vernor to take immediate steps for his rescue. 
Two ships were dispatched to Jamaica, and 
brought off all the Spaniards, loyal and disloyal 
together. 

They left their prison on the 28th of June; but 
winds and currents were contrary as usual ; and 
nearly two months were consumed in beating 
Eastward through the open sea, and along the 
shores of Hispaniola, before they reached St. Do- 
mingo. The most toilsome of his voyages it had 
been, and the most full of vexations ; but Colum- 
bus himself called it "the most honourable and 



COLUMBUS. 295 

advantageous " of all that he had undertaken, 
alluding partly to his own enlarged knowledge of 
the great boundary-lines of sea and land, and 
partly to the theories which grew out of his re- 
cent discoveries. How much still remained' to be 
learnt and done will appear from a single sentence 
in his own narrative : — " The world is but small ; 
out of seven portions of it the dry part occupies 
six, and the seventh is entirely covered with 
water. Experience has shown it, and I have 
written it, w T ith quotations from Holy Scripture, 
in other letters, where I have treated of the situ- 
ation of the terrestrial Paradise, as approved by 
the Holy Church." 

If banishment had been wearisome g a( j news at 
to a man like Columbus, full of ardour Hispaniola. 
and longing for fresh enterprizes, the news which 
met him at St. Domingo must have wrung his 
heart yet more painfully. The government of 
Ovando had proved a merciless one to the poor 
natives, whom he had received special orders from 
Isabella to protect and cherish. A swarm of ad- 
venturers had gone out with him, all athirst for 
gold. " For seven years," says Columbus^ 
writing to the King and Queen, and lamenting 
this sad invasion of the colony, " I was at your 

u 4 



296 COLUMBUS. 

royal court, where every one to whom the enter- 
prize was mentioned treated it as ridiculous ; but 
now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, 
who does not beg to be allowed to become a disco- 
verer." Tailors and hidalgos, however, both proved 
but sorry miners ; gold did not grow upon the trees, 
but had to be dug up by hard toil ; many days of 
labour brought but a scanty return; and num- 
bers who had started in high spirits, with spade 
and knapsack on their shoulders, returned to tell 
a tale of disappointed hopes, or sank down ex- 
hausted on the soil which yielded its treasure so 
slowly. Then came harder and more exacting 
conditions for the native diggers. Slaves they 
were not to be in name, the Queen had said, any 
longer : but compulsory labour was still the rule 
of the colony, and beneath the ever-growing 
rapacity and tyranny of their Spanish masters, 
the feeble, helpless race was rapidly wasting away. 
War, too, had been desolating the fair fields of 
Hispaniola, and thinning its native population. 
Murmurs and threats against the intruding colo- 
nists passed for grave offences; violence was 
repressed by the sternest and most relentless 
policy ; and when one brave cacique had made a 
last stand for independence, and had failed 
in the unequal contest, hanging for himself, and 



COLUMBUS. 297 

tortures ingeniously cruel for multitudes of his 
unhappy subjects, were the punishments awarded 
by the unsparing Governor. Worse than all, 
friends had been confounded with enemies, and 
treachery of the basest kind had been practised 
towards those who had been serviceable allies. 
Because tribute was paid grudgingly in Xaragua, 
and quarrels sometimes arose between the con- 
quered tribes and their unscrupulous rulers, 
Ovando chose to fancy that a formidable insur- 
rection was being planned, and took his measures 
accordingly. A visit of friendship was pretended, 
and the Governor with four hundred well-armed 
soldiers set out from the capital. Anacaona, the 
faithful ally of Spain, who had lately succeeded 
her brother in the government of the province, 
gave him a friendly greeting, and, in return, was 
invited, with her daughter and all her principal 
officers, to behold a military spectacle in the 
square of her principal town. Then, at a given 
signal, Spanish horsemen rushed upon the un- 
armed multitude, and cut them down without 
mercy. Eighty men of rank were tortured into 
confession, and then burnt as criminals. Ana- 
caona herself had a mock trial, and then died a 
death of shame. 

No wonder that tidings like these almost broke 



298 COLUMBUS. 

the heart of Columbus. His paradise of beauty 
was spoiled and plundered, — turned into a theatre 
of crime. Where now were the visions which had 
solaced him often during the long midnight watches 
of his early voyages, and proved his stay and com- 
fort when every thing looked least propitious to his 
wishes ? What was he now after all his toils, and 
all his successes ? He had looked to be the richest 
subject in the world, able to take armies into his 
pay, and to wrest Palestine from the Infidel. 
And lo ! he was but a broken-down old man, 
encumbered with debt, surrounded with hungry, 
disappointed adventurers, who laid their ruin at 
his door. He had hoped to be as a father to the 
gentle tribes which greeted him at his first 
coming ; to give them European arts and civiliza- 
tion in return for their simple, trusting kindness ; 
and to make them brothers in the highest sense, as 
disciples of one common Redeemer. Instead of 
this, he found their beautiful land desolated by 
the oppressions of his countrymen, — their willing 
service exchanged for bondage like that of 
Egypt, — their numbers dwindling away beneath 
the unsparing exactions of their Spanish masters. 
Little had been done to bring them to the faith of 
Christ, and more had been done to make them 
hate the very name of Christian than could be 



COLUMBUS. 299 

repaired in two generations. He had soared in 
thought above the sphere of petty interests and 
vulgar rivalry. If Providence should guide him 
to distant lands, his anxious desire was to bind 
together the scattered members of the great hu- 
man family by commerce and religion. But life 
was almost gone, and his aims had all been frus- 
trated. One great duty remained, and should be 
discharged without delay. He felt responsible 
for the miseries and wrongs of the natives, 
while nothing was done to redress them. He 
must plead their cause in Spain, and for their 
sakes, as for the sake of his own injured honour, 
must ask for powers at least as large as those with 
which he was originally invested. 

To Spain, accordingly, he went; Arrival 

and, after encountering perils like in Spain, 

Nov. 7th. 
those of his first return voyage, reached 

Seville, enfeebled and dispirited by sickness, and 
almost a beggar. Nearly all the money he had 
been able to collect in Hispaniola had been gene- 
rously expended to bring home the men who 
sailed with him, many of them having been of 
the Porras faction, who deserved punishment 
rather than favour. And now his own words 
were too true, — house of his own he had none in 



300 COLUMBUS. 

Spain; and of his property nothing seemed to 
be available for present necessities. Ovando 
intercepted his rents and dues, and scarcely any- 
thing of what sounded like a princely revenue 
came to hand. Painful disease was added to 
his other troubles, and when he started for the 
Court to plead his own cause, his strength proved 
to be completely unequal to the journey. So 
nothing remained for him but to urge his claims 
by letter, and to trust to the intercession of one 
or two zealous friends, who spared no pains to 
get him righted. But Ferdinand listened coldly 
to all his complaints. Full justice he was resolved 
not to render to one whose greatness and services 
were beyond all rivalry ; so he tried to avoid the 
subject, or returned shabby and evasive answers. 
Isabella's Isabella, meanwhile, was disabled 

death, Dy sickness, and, before Columbus had 

Nov. 26th. ' , - o - i • -. 

been a month in bpam, ne received 

the sad tidings of her death. His early patroness, 
— his steady friend, — who loved him for his 
own sake, and for his noble deeds, — who hated 
wrong in every shape, — she would never listen 
again to his straightforward tale of truth, nor 
cheer him with her benignant smile when every 
cloud of suspicion was removed. He seemed now 
to be left alone in a land of jealous strangers. 



COLUMBUS. 301 

Ferdinand was left more free to act according to 
his mean and selfish nature. Yet the loyalty of 
Columbus never wavered. Writing to his son, 
Diego, who was then at Court, he says, " The 
next thing " (after commending the soul of the 
Queen " affectionately and with great devotion " 
to God) " is to watch and labour in all matters 
for the service of our Sovereign, the King, and 
to endeavour to alleviate his grief. His Majesty 
is the head of Christendom. Remember the 
proverb which says, when the head suffers, all the 
members suffer. Therefore, all good Christians 
should pray for his health and long life, and we, 
who are in his employ, ought more than others to 
do this with all study and diligence." 

In the following May he found his j^st visit 
way to Segovia, where the Court was t0 Court - 
residing. Again his story was told in the royal 
presence, — all he had seen on the Continent of 
America, — all he had suffered in Jamaica, — the 
troubles and discontents of Hispaniola, with his 
own losses and the wrongs of the gentle, deeply- 
suffering natives. But no generous emotion was 
stirred in the breast of Ferdinand, and no progress 
was made towards the restoration of Columbus 
to his government. The King's resolve was 
taken, and he would as soon have parted with 



302 COLUMBUS. 

Castile or Aragon, as have given back Hispaniola 
on the terms of the original grant. Months were 
consumed by Columbus in fruitless attendance 
upon the Court; Cardinal Ximenes, Ferdinand's 
chief adviser, gave him fair speeches like his 
master; the pecuniary claims were referred to a 
Council, who met and decided nothing. All 
knew that the great Admiral was regarded as a 
troublesome petitioner, whose work was done, 
and whose services were no longer wanted. 

,„«„ Columbus's constitutional disease, 

a.d. 1505. 

the gout, at last ended his importunity, 
and confined him to his chamber. From thence 
he wrote, claiming the government for his son 
Diego, according to the terms of the original 
grant. (i This," he said, " is a matter which 
concerns my honour; as to all the rest, do as 
your Majesty thinks proper; give or withhold, 
as may be most for your interest, and I shall be 
content." That request was denied, like every 
other ; and then he was pressed to forego his 
claim, and to receive in exchange honours and 
estates in Castile. But he would be no party to 
his own forfeiture; so, when he found his So- 
vereign was immoveable, he ceased to trouble 
him more. " I have done all that I could do," 
he wrote at last to his steady friend, Diego de 



COLUMBUS. 303 

Deza ; " it appears that his Majesty does not 
think fit to fulfil that which he, with the Queen 
who is now in glory, has promised me by # word 
and seal. For me to contend for the contrary, 
would be to contend with the wind." 

On Ascension Day, in the follow- A . . Kne 

A. D. lo(Jo. 

ins; year, the 20th of May, his troubled Death of 

i t -r-r • i ii i Columbus. 

course was ended. Having done all that 
duty and affection required, and made a careful dis- 
position of his affairs by will, attended by his son 
Diego and a few faithful friends, he commended 
his spirit to God in the dying words of his 
Redeemer. As the living man had been neglected, 
so little respect was paid to his remains. Strangely 
enough, it seemed as if his dust, like himself, 
could find no resting-place. No monumental 
honours were given him in his adopted country, 
except an epitaph, contained in a single couplet, 
which was inscribed upon his tomb by Ferdi- 
nand * ; and, thirty years after his death, his 
bones were disinterred and carried over the sea, 
in the old track, to Hispaniola, — thence to be 
removed, at a yet later day, to Cuba. In the 
city of Havanna, where the flag of Spain still 

* POR CASTTLLA Y POB LEON 

NUEVO MUKDO HALLO COLON. 

For Castile and Leon Columbus found a New World. 



304 COLUMBUS. 

waves, all that remains of the great Columbus 
found a lasting grave.* 

" I have reached the point," he once wrote in 
the day of his adversity, " that there is no man 
so vile but thinks it his right to insult me. If I 
had plundered the Indies, even to the country 
where is the fabled altar of St. Peter, and had 
given them all to the Moors, they could not have 
shown towards me more bitter enmity than they 
have done in Spain. The time will come when the 
world will reckon it a virtue to him who has not 
given his consent to their abuse." That time 
has come ; and Europe and America delight to 
give honour to his name. Not only because his 
genius and energy broke through the barrier 
which once parted the Old World and the New, 
— not only because he stands at the head of that 
noble band, unequalled, almost, for heroic bravery 
and indomitable patience and magnanimous self- 
devotion, who, in successive centuries, have had 
the " ocean-sea closed with such mighty chains " 
for their field of triumph, — but yet more for all 
that was great and generous in his aims, — for his 
desire to bless mankind with knowledge and 






■&' 



* See NOTE (Y). 



COLUMBUS. 305 

religion, — for his fatherly care over the gentle 
and suffering race whose bonds he meant to be 
those of grateful love, — for his patience and 
self-command under accumulated wrongs, — for 
the piety which gave elevation to his projects, 
and lifted him far above the vulgar herd of ad- 
venturers who followed in his track, — millions 
on both sides of the Atlantic give him the 
greeting of their honest praise. One of the 
greatest works, all things considered, that have 
been wrought by individual effort since men were 
scattered over the earth, it was the will of Pro- 
vidence to commit to one of the world's greatest 
men ; and what he was raised up to do, he ac- 
complished with singular uprightness, and with 
marvellous success. 



The reader who wishes for fuller details will find 
them in the following works : — 

Washington Irving's Life and Voyages or 
Columbus, in four octavo volumes, of which there is 
a valuable epitome, made by the author himself, in one 
smaller volume. 

The Second Book of Robertson's History of 
America is another version of the same story, for 
which thousands of the existing generation, and the 
X 



306 COLUMBUS. 

last, have felt deeply grateful to the writer, when 
they first made acquaintance with Columbus in his 
pages, and followed him in that memorable voyage 
across the Atlantic. 

The First Volume of Herrera's History of the 
West Indies supplies much that is interesting in a 
simple, unpretending style. 

A valuable publication of modern times is one of 
the Volumes of the Hakluyt Society, containing the 
Select Letters of Columbus, in which his four 
voyages are described by himself. 

Mr. Prescott's able and interesting work on Fer- 
dinand and Isabella leaves nothing to be desired on 
that part of the History. 

Columbus's son, Fernando, wrote a life of his 
father, called the History of the Admiral, which 
has never been translated. 

The fullest Collection of original documents bearing 
on all points connected with the Discoverer is in a 
publication of the present century, by Navarrete, 
a Spanish writer. This Mr. Irving thought of trans- 
lating, in the first instance, but ultimately wrote his 
own Memoir instead, availing himself largely of the 
materials which it supplied. 

Those who wish to see how Columbus was regarded 
in his own age will find much respecting him in Las 
Casas' Relation des Voyages et des Decouvertes 
des Espagnols, and in Peter Martyr's Letters, 
both writers having been personally known to him. 






NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



NOTE (Q). Page 195. 

In the year 1482, before Luther was born, 
Pope Sixtus the Fourth conferred a rich see in 
Spain on his nephew, Isabella having designed it 
for her chaplain, a man of piety and learning. 
An ambassador was despatched to Rome with 
the remonstrances of the Queen, and returned 
with an answer from His Holiness that, as Head 
of the Church, he had an absolute right to dis- 
pose of ecclesiastical benefices at his pleasure, 
and was not bound to consult the humour of any 
earthly potentate. Isabella, devotee as she was, 
would not brook language or usage like this, and 
commanded all her subjects to leave Rome. 
Ecclesiastics, as well as laymen, obeyed ; and the 
Spanish sovereigns, being thus forcibly reminded 
of the insolence and rapacity of the Papal Court, 
began to talk of a General Council to set things 
right. The sound was ominous to one like 
Sixtus, and a Legate was despatched from Rome 
to make concessions ; but to his surprise he re- 
ceived a peremptory order to quit the kingdom 
without delay. There was no swaggering, then, 
about St. Peter and the Supremacy, — no threat- 
ened excommunication, — no re-assertion of the 
Pope's right to do with Spain and its wealth as 
x 2 



308 COLUMBUS. 

he pleased. The ambassador became very humble, 
and begged in the most submissive terms for an 
audience, which was granted on the interposition 
of Cardinal Mendoza, Isabella's principal adviser. 
The Queen was firm, and carried her point ; for a 
Bull came shortly afterwards from Rome, conferring 
the vacant Bishopric on the man of her choice, and 
pledging the Pope to attend to her nomination in 
future. The consequence was that, instead of the 
Pope's nephews and others, who understood not a 
word of Spanish, and came, like foreign adven- 
turers, to live on plunder, natives of high character 
and qualifications were promoted to vacant sees. 
Isabella the Catholic had no confidence in 
the Pope's infallible judgment as respected Epis- 
copal qualifications, but wisely, and much to her 
people's gain, preferred her own. 



NOTE (R). Page 196. 

Mr. Prescott kindles into enthusiasm as he 
describes the virtues and achievements of this 
noble-minded Q.ueen ; and there is something ex- 
ceedingly interesting in the thought that a worthy 
monument to her fame has been erected by a 
native of that country which she helped to bring 
within the pale of civilization. 

" If there be any being on earth," he says, 
" that may be permitted to remind us of the 
Deity himself, it is the ruler of a mighty empire 
who employs the high powers entrusted to him 
exclusively for the benefit of his people, — who, 
endowed with intellectual gifts corresponding to 



NOTES. 309 

his station, in an age of comparative barbarism, 
endeavours to impart to his land the light of 
civilization which illumines his own bosom, and 
to create from the elements of discord the beau- 
tiful fabric of social order. Such was Isabella ; 
and such the age in which she lived." 

NOTE(S). Page 211. 

Columbus never forgot his obligations to the 
"two friars," but took every opportunity of 
mentioning them with honour. In a letter de- 
scribing his third voyage he classes them with 
the King and Queen as having given him credit 
and encouragement when all the world was 
against him. The passage is worth quoting, as a 
specimen of the modest, unpretending tone in 
which his own triumphs were referred to. 

" The Blessed Trinity moved your Highnesses 
to the encouragement of this enterprise to the 
Indies, and of His infinite goodness has made me 
your messenger therein. Those who heard of it 
looked upon it as impossible, for they fixed all 
their hopes on the favours of fortune, and pinned 
their faith solely upon chance. I gave to the 
subject six or seven years of great anxiety, ex- 
plaining to the best of my ability how great ser- 
vice might be done to our Lord by this under- 
taking, in promulgating His sacred name and our 
holy faith among so many nations, — an enter- 
prise so excellent in itself, and so calculated to 
enhance the glory, and immortalize the renown, of 

the greatest sovereign And, finally, your 

Highnesses came to the determination that the 
x 3 



310 COLUMBUS. 

undertaking should be entered upon. In this 
your Highnesses exhibited the noble spirit which 
has been always manifested by you on every 
great subject ; for all others who had thought of 
the matter, or heard it spoken of, unanimously 
treated it with contempt, with the exception of 
two friars, who always remained constant in their 
belief of its practicability. I, myself, in spite of 
fatiguing opposition, felt sure that the enterprise 
would nevertheless prosper, and continue equally 
confident of it to this day, because it is a truth 
that, though every thing will pass away, the Word 
of God will not ; and I believe that every pro- 
spect which I hold out will be accomplished ; for 
it was clearly predicted concerning these lands, by 
the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, in many places 
in Scripture, that from Spain the holy name of 
God was to be spread abroad." — Letters of 
Columbus, pp. 104 — 106. 



NOTE (T). Page 224. 

Robertson, relying on one uncertain authority, 
Oviedo, adds to the romance of this part of the 
voyage by representing Columbus as having 
pledged himself to his mutinous crew to turn 
back if he did not find land in three days. This 
promise, according to his account, was given on 
the 10th, the next day but one before they 
landed on St. Salvador. Of course, one inclines 
to the tale which brings things so completely to 
a crisis, and makes us follow the track of the 
vessels on the succeeding day with almost breath- 
less interest. But there is no doubt that this is 



NOTES. 311 

a spurious addition to the narrative, which needs 
no adornment or exaggeration. Columbus him- 
self never alludes to this supposed capitulation. 
His son Ferdinand, in his " History of the Ad- 
miral," is silent about it. Not a word is breathed 
about any occurrence of the sort by Peter Martyr, 
or by Las Casas, both of whom knew Columbus. 
Nay, Columbus's own journal has an entry which 
shows that at the very time specified he repeated 
his determination to persevere at all hazards. 



NOTE (U). Page 234. 

Another messenger seems to have been sent 
from Lisbon, a few days afterwards, with a full 
report of his voyage and its results. It is ad- 
dressed to the royal Treasurer ; and for simplicity 
of style, and the absence of a vainglorious spirit, 
it may be compared to the Duke of Wellington's 
despatches announcing his own victories. The 
commencement is as follows : — 

" Knowing that it will afford you pleasure to 
learn that I have brought my undertaking to 
a successful termination, I have decided upon 
writing you this letter to acquaint you with all 
the events which have occurred in my voyage, 
and the discoveries which have resulted from it. 
Thirty-three days after my departure from Cadiz*, 

* This is a very obvious error which has crept into the 
Latin copies of the letter, the time occupied in the voyage 
having been seventy days. The editor of the " Letters " 
conjectures that Cadiz should be Gomera, one of the Canary 
Islands, from which Columbus set sail on the 6th. Possibly, 
Ferro should be substituted, which he passed on the 9th, 
x 4 



312 COLUMBUS. 

I reached the Indian sea, where I discovered many- 
islands, thickly peopled, of which I took possession 
without resistance, in the name of our most illus- 
trious Monarch, by public proclamation, and with 
unfurled banners. To the first of the islands, 
which is called by the Indians Guanahani, I gave 
the name of the blessed Saviour (San Salvador), 
relying upon whose protection I had reached this 
as well as the other islands ; to each of these I 
also gave a name, ordering that one should be 
called Santa Maria de la Concepcion, another 
Fernandina, the third Isabella, the fourth Juana, 
and so with all the rest respectively." — Letters, 
pp. 1,2. 

The conclusion is in another strain ; and coming 
from such a man, at such a time, is singularly 
interesting and beautiful : — 

" Although all that I have related may appear 
to be wonderful and unheard of, yet the results 
of my voyage would have been more astonishing if 
I had had at my disposal such ships as I required. 
But these great and marvellous results are not to 
be attributed to any merit of mine, but to the 
holy Christian faith, and to the piety and religion 
of our Sovereigns; for that which the unaided 
intellect of man could not compass, the Spirit of 
God has granted to human exertions, for God is 
wont to hear the prayers of his servants who love 
his precepts even to the performance of apparent 
impossibilities. Thus it has happened to me in 
the present instance, who have accomplished a 

and which was the last land that he saw till he reached St. 
Salvador. Between the 9th of September and the 12th of 
October there is the precise interval of thirty-three days. 



NOTES. 313 

task to which the powers of mortal men had 
never hitherto attained; for if there have been 
those who have anywhere written or spoken of 
these islands, they have clone so with doubts and 
conjectures, and no one has ever asserted that he 
has seen them, on which account their writings 
have been looked upon as little else than fables. 
Therefore, let the King and Queen, our Princes, 
and their most happy kingdoms, and all the other 
provinces of Christendom, render thanks to our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has granted 
us so great a victory and such prosperity. Let 
processions be made, and sacred feasts be held, 
and the temples be adorned with festive boughs. 
Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in 
heaven, in the prospect of the salvation of the 
souls of so many nations hitherto lost. Let us 
also rejoice, as well on account of the exaltation 
of our faith, as on account of the increase of our 
temporal prosperity, of which not only Spain, but 
all Christendom, will be partakers. 

" Such are the events which I have briefly de- 
scribed. Farewell, 

" Christopher Columbus, 
Admiral of the Fleet of 
the Ocean. 

" Lisbon. The 14th of March." 

Letters, pp. 16, 17. 



NOTE (V). Page 262. 

Columbus's speculations and reasonings on this 
subject are very curious. Certainly, he had ad- 



314 COLUMBUS. 

vantages for investigating the other hemisphere 
which Aristotle had not ; but why " one part of 
the world ought to be loftier and nearer the sky 
than the other," neither the philosopher nor the 
navigator have told us. 

66 On these grounds, therefore, I affirm that 
the globe is not spherical, but that there is the 
difference in its form which I have described; 
the which is to be found in this hemisphere, at 
the point where the Indies meet the ocean, the 
extremity of the hemisphere being below the 
Equinoctial line. And a great confirmation of 
this is, that when our Lord made the sun, the first 
light appeared in the first point of the East, where 
the most elevated point of the globe is. And 
although it was the opinion of Aristotle that the 
Antarctic Pole, or the land which is below it, 
was the highest part of the world, and the nearest 
to the heavens, other philosophers oppose him, 
and say, that the highest part was below the 
Arctic Pole ; by which reasoning it appears that 
they understood that one part of the world ought 
to be loftier, and nearer the sky, than the other ; 
but it never struck them that it might be under 
the Equinoctial, in the way that I have said, 
which is not to be wondered at, because they 
had no certain knowledge respecting this hemi- 
sphere, but merely vague suppositions, for no one 
has ever gone or been sent to investigate the 
matter, until your Highnesses sent me to explore 
both the sea and the land." — Letters, pp. 133, 134. 



NOTES. 315 



NOTE (X). Page 283. 

The description of this storm, and of Columbus's 
own mind at the time, given in his own simple 
language, is deeply affecting. Yet was it but 
one passage in a life of storms : — " My ships 
lay exposed, with sails torn, and anchors, rigging, 
cables, boats, and a great quantity of provisions, 
lost ; my people were very weak and humbled 
in spirit, many of them promising to lead a reli- 
gious life, and all making vows and promising 
to perform pilgrimages, while some of them would 
frequently go to their messmates to make con- 
fession. Other tempests have been experienced, 
but never of so long a duration, or so fearful, as 
this : many, whom we looked upon as brave men, 
on several occasions showed considerable trepi- 
dation ; but the distress of my son, who was with 
me, grieved me to the soul, and the more, when 
I considered his tender age, for he was but 
thirteen years old, and he enduring so much toil 
for so long a time. Our Lord, however, gave 
him strength even to enable him to encourage 
the rest, and he worked as if he had been eighty 
years at sea ; and all this was a consolation to me. 
I myself had fallen sick, and was many times 
at the point of death, but from a little cabin, that 
I caused to be constructed on deck, I directed 
our course. My brother was in the ship that 
was in the worst condition, and most exposed to 
danger; and my grief on this account was the 
greater that I had brought him with me against 
his will. Another anxiety wrung my very heart- 
strings, which was the thought of my son Diego, 



316 COLUMBUS. 

whom I had left an orphan in Spain, and stripped 
of the honour and property which were due to 
him on my account, although I had looked upon 
it as a certainty, that your Majesties, as just and 
grateful princes, would restore it to him in all 
respects with increase." — Letters, pp, 172, 173. 



XOTE (Y). Page 304. 

The last removal was so late as the year 1795, 
when Hayti was transferred by treaty from the 
Spaniards to the French. The Spanish Admiral, 
who was engaged in the formal surrender of the 
island, claimed the mortal remains of Columbus 
as a relic which, of right, belonged to Spain, and 
the demand was at once acceded to by the French 
authorities. The transfer to Cuba was effected 
with much of religious pomp and solemnity, masses 
being performed in the principal cathedrals of 
both islands, and the highest civil and eccle- 
siastical authorities being gathered round the 
gilded case in which the bones had been collected. 
Men of the first distinction carried the coffin on 
board ; and thus freighted, while symbols of 
mourning hung from the masts and rigging, a 
brigantine, called the Discoverer, sailed out of 
the port of St. Domingo, — that St. Domingo 
from which, nearly three centuries before, the 
living man had sailed in chains. 



THE REFORMATION AGE 
AND LUTHEE. 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 319 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE REFORMATION AGE. 

The death of Columbus brings us to the opening 
of the sixteenth century ; and to every thoughtful 
observer, at that period, it must have been quite 
plain that a new asra in the world's history had 
begun. As each age is the parent of the next, 
what had been done in the fifteenth could not fail 
to produce immensely important results to the 
nations of Europe. That marvellous book-cre- 
ating power was sure to multiply scholars of a 
certain kind, almost indefinitely. A little handful 
of men could no longer exercise their old sway, as 
having the exclusive possession of the records of 
past times. The relations between the Clergy and 
the Laity would be completely altered. A power 
would necessarily grow up, quite apart from terri- 
torial and military power, — the power of educated 
and intelligent minds, not wedded, as hitherto, 
to Church authority, or confined within priestly 
bounds. 

Then, too, Columbus's great achievement had 
an effect immensely beyond the addition of vast 



320 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

colonial possessions to some European kingdoms. 
Besides the newly explored ocean, and the islands 
which were scattered over it, there was an un- 
explored world beyond, and thither men flocked 
across the Atlantic in search of adventure or of 
gold. The boldest spirits caught eagerly at such 
an inviting field of enterprise. Columbus's early 
descriptions, all given in good faith, made his 
beloved island look like an earthly paradise ; and 
when that dream was over, and the real truth 
came out, there was still enough to stimulate 
curiosity and kindle enthusiasm, and stir the 
noblest and basest passions of man's nature. So 
to the young, the aspiring, and the reckless, of the 
next generation, the West was the land of pro- 
mise, and other nations soon began to share with 
Spain the glory and the shame connected with 
the conquest of the New World. Improvement 
in nautical science, and the growth of commercial 
power, were the- necessary results. The inter- 
vening ocean was crossed and re- crossed as easily 
and safely as the smaller seas had been in the 
preceding century. Fleets were fitted out from 
Spain ; while from Portugal and England, and 
other maritime countries, the captains of single 
vessels, chartered by the Crown, sailed on their 
several tracks, or little bands of daring men 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 321 

joined company, and began to rove far and wide 
through the Western seas. 

Soon, too, the field of enterprise p r0 gress of 
became immensely widened, as new dlscov ery. 
discoveries were reported, new oceans explored, 
and new empires founded. In the year 1500 
Cabral, a Portuguese, having started for India, 
and taken a more westerly course than usual, 
lighted on Brazil. In 1513, Balboa, a Spaniard, 
having crossed the Isthmus of Darien, climbed a 
mountain range from which the natives assured 
him that he would see a boundless ocean ; and, 
having ascended the last height alone, feasted his 
eyes with the vast Pacific, glittering in the 
morning sun ; then, descending to the shore, and 
plunging knee-deep into the water, he claimed 
sea and land together for the Crown of Spain. 
In 1520, Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, 
though in the Spanish service, reached the same 
Ocean, after sailing through the straits which 
bear his name ; and though the commander himself, 
after reaching the Philippine Islands, perished, 
like our Captain Cook, in a conflict with the 
natives, one of his vessels, out of the five which 
left Spain, completed the circumnavigation of the 
globe, and reached Seville after a voyage of three 



322 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

years' duration. During the same period, Cortes 
was winning Mexico for Spain, — having landed 
on the American continent in the year that 
Magellan sailed, and completed his marvellous 
conquest before the survivors of the expedition 
returned to the mother country. In 1531, 
Pizarro sailed with his three small vessels and a 
hundred and eighty men from Panama to con- 
quer Peru, and, in little more than two years, 
after taking the Inca, or reigning Sovereign, in 
battle, and trying and executing him for idolatry, 
concubinage and rebellion, remained master of 
the country. 

Another remarkable feature of the 

Growing . 

power of next age was the consolidation and 
rapid growth of many of the great 
European kingdoms. Wars of Succession were 
over ; religious wars had not yet begun ; and, in 
the interval, monarchs became more powerful, and 
had a much greater command of resources. Eng- 
land gave up the hope of conquering France, 
and under the Tudor rule, — with its industry 
protected, its trade expanding, and its wealth 
no longer drained by foreign or domestic wars, 
— began to take a far more prominent and 
influential part in European politics. France, 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 323 

under Louis XL, had grown to be a great mo- 
narchy, no longer checked and controlled by- 
princes who had all but sovereign rights; and 
factions like those of Orleans and Burgundy had 
ceased to divide and disgrace their common 
country. Spain, united, in a sense, under Fer- 
dinand and Isabella, became yet more closely 
compacted under their descendants, and with the 
addition of the Indies, as its colonial possessions 
were called, would have been a rich inheritance 
for Charles V., if no other kingdom had descended 
to him from his ancestors. 

Spain, however, was but a fragment of the vast 
empire which became subject to his sway, and 
which, by a strange combination of events, grew 
to an almost portentous size. Europe had seen 
nothing like it since Charlemagne, and saw no- 
thing like it again till Napoleon began to dis- 
tribute crowns among his generals and kinsmen. 
It seemed as if princes and princesses had made 
conquests and contracted alliances, had lived, 
married, and died, on purpose to build up an 
empire for this strangely- endowed child of for- 
tune. Burgundy and Flanders were his, because 
Charles the Bold, the last Duke, left no issue but 
a daughter, who became the wife of Maximilian, 
Emperor of Germany, and Maximilian was 
x 2 



324 THE KEFORMATION AGE. 

Charles's grandfather. Spain became his, be- 
cause his mother, Joanna, having survived her 
brother and elder sister, remained the heiress of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, and so brought Castile 
and Aragon as her dowry to the Archduke Philip, 
Charles's father. Naples and Sicily were his, 
because the French had driven out the reigning 
family, and Ferdinand, who was the King's ne- 
phew, having reconquered them for his kinsman, 
basely kept them for himself. To this splendid 
inheritance Charles had succeeded before he was 
sixteen ; and three years later, after months of 
expectation, and a series of intrigues and nego- 
tiations which agitated every court in Europe, 

the unanimous voice of the Electors 
A.D. 1519. , . . _ . . 

gave mm the Imperial crown. 

Thus order was succeeding to anarchy in the 
kingdoms we have named. The enormous influ- 
ence of the great barons, which had grown up 
under the feudal system, was greatly reduced. 
The power of the sword was wielded by the head 
of the state, and larger armies were collected, 
and better discipline was enforced, as the royal 
revenues became more fixed and certain. At 
the same time, much was gained to the mo- 
narchies of Europe, during the age we speak of, 
by reo'ularity of succession, and the absence of 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 325 

revolutionary wars. In England, the beginning 
of the preceding century had found an usurper, 
Henry IV, just seated on the throne. His 
grandson, Henry VI., was deposed, restored, 
again deposed, and at last died in the Tower, 
surviving by a few days the assassination of his 
heir. Edward IV., after winning the kingdom, 
flying from it for his life, and then winning it 
back again, died in peace, bequeathing the crown 
to his child. But the murder of one king in the 
Tower, and the miserable end of his guilty suc- 
cessor on Bosworth Field, closed the list of royal 
victims ; and then a long peace followed the fatal 
wars which had been marked by twelve pitched 
battles on the soil of England. During the whole 
of the sixteenth century, we find Henry VII., 
his son and his three grandchildren, sitting, un- 
challenged, on the throne of England. The same 
thing; W as seen in France. From the accession 
of Francis I.*, in the year 1515, he and his 
descendants held undisputed possession of the 
crown for seventy-four years, — the reigning 
sovereigns up to the death of Henry III. being 
his son, Henry II., and his three grandchildren. 
Before the end of this period, a new cause of 
dissension had sprung up ; but, during the fifty 

* See NOTE (Z> 
y 3, 



326 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

years which preceded the breaking out of the 
religious wars, the country grew rapidly in 
strength and prosperity. Spain, we have al- 
ready said, had seen rival claimants to the throne, 
in the time of Isabella and her father; but no 
such scenes were repeated in the century that 
followed, and the close of it saw her descendant 
of the fourth generation, Philip III., peacefully 
ascend the throne of his ancestors. Lastly, in 
Germany only one Emperor had succeeded his 
father between 1400 and 1493, and that was the 
last of them, Maximilian ; but the more pacific 
age was occupied by the reigns of himself, his two 
grandsons, Charles and Ferdinand, and the son 
and grandson of the last. 

This growing power of the mo- 

Lesseimig ° or 

influence of narchies of Europe was sure to be 
felt at Rome. The encroachments 
and exactions of successive Popes became in- 
tolerable to Sovereigns who were more inde- 
pendent of their help than formerly, and many 
protests were heard, and much of active oppo- 
sition to the Church's claims was stirred up, 
before her doctrine began to be assailed. " It is 
common," says Ranke, iQ to represent the Papal 
authority as nearly unlimited up to the time of 
the Reformation; but the fact is that the civil 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 327 

governments had possessed themselves of no small 
share of ecclesiastical rights and privileges as early 
as the beginning of the sixteenth, or even the 
latter part of the fifteenth, century." It is com- 
mon with Roman Catholics, moreover, to repre- 
sent Christendom as looking up with reverence 
to the Chair of St. Peter, till Luther poisoned 
men's minds with heresies, and taught them to 
speak profanely about sacred things and persons. 
But the fact is that many besides Luther, and 
before him, were quite as plain-spoken ; and it is no 
hard matter to condemn the Popes of that age by 
witnesses who passed for good sons of the Church 
to their dying day. " The Pope," said the Em- 
peror Maximilian one day, " has used me like a 
rogue. I can fairly say that I have never found 
sincerity or good faith in any Pope I have met 
with ; but, please God, I hope this will be the 
last of them." Erasmus, the first scholar of his 
age, lived and died in the Romish communion. 
When the time of conflict came, the Church 
reckoned him amongst her champions ; yet his 
writings tell a tale of ecclesiastical corruptions, 
which made some vigorous reformation neces- 
sary if the Church was to retain the respect of 
an intelligent and enquiring age. The frauds 
and trickeries connected with saint-worship and 

T 4 



328 THE [REFORMATION AGE. 

image-worship, — the ignorance and laziness of 
monks, with the arts practised by them on the 
common people for the sake of gain, — all these 
are unsparingly exposed in plain narrative, or in 
biting satire ; and, certainly, if arguments were 
wanted to justify the movement which convulsed 
Europe from end to end before he died, they will 
be found abundantly in his Dialogues and Letters, 
audi Praise of Folly*, though, when the time came 
for bold measures, the timid student shrank into 
his cell. " Convents," he says, speaking from his 
own experience, " were places of impiety, where 
every thing was done to which a depraved ima- 
gination could lead, under the sanction and mask 
of religion." "In Churches," he writes again, 
f e hardly any room is found for comments on the 
gospel. The holy doctrine of Christ must be sup- 
pressed, or interpreted contrary to its meaning, 
for the profit of those who trade in Indulgences." 

Scandals All that was done elsewhere, how- 

at Koine. ever, to dishonour religion, and make 
men wonder or weep at the desecration of holy 
things, was as nothing compared with what was 
allowed and practised at Rome itself. Popes 
grew bolder in impiety, and plunged deeper into 

* See NOTE (A A), 



THE KEFORMATION AGE. 329 

crime. Men were raised up, and permitted to 
rule the Church in Christ's name, who, not only- 
had no pretence of saintliness about them, but 
were utterly shameless in their vices. It seemed 
as if the patience and credulity of mankind were 
to be tried to the uttermost, — the claim to in- 
fallibility being associated with daring profligacy 
and self-seeking ambition which were a perfect 
scandal to Christendom. While Luther grew up 
from infancy to manhood, three Popes in suc- 
cession sat in the chair of St. Peter, whose his- 
tory, by itself, would furnish a complete apology 
for the Reformation. Ingeniously, we may say, 
they contrived to exhibit the naked deformity of 
the system in which vices like theirs could coexist 
with spiritual pretensions of the most exalted 
kind. A bare statement of what was seen in the 
Holy City through a single generation, while the 
Papal sovereignty was still unchallenged, will 
show to what an extent the common sense of 
mankind had been shocked, and their moral feel- 
ings outraged, when they began to demand some- 
thing that should better satisfy their consciences. 

In the year 1484 the Cardinals were innocent 
mustered to elect a successor to Sixtus vHX 
IV. The usual amount of intrigue succeeded, 
and more than the usual amount of bribery. 



330 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

One busy Cardinal, Julian della Rovera, had ar- 
ranged the price of every vote. Faith was kept 
on both sides ; Innocent VIII. was elected ; and 
castles and benefices were divided among his 
friends. Pope's nephews had become notorious by 
this time, ecclesiastical dignities and revenues 
being heaped upon them without scruple ; but the 
new Pontiff quartered another class of pensioners 
on the Church. Seven bastard sons by different 
mistresses were publicly owned by him, and most 
of them endowed like princes. One of these had 
a brother-in-law, the son of the famous Lorenzo 
de Medici ; and, in the wantonness of power, 
Innocent made him a Cardinal at thirteen. The 
only proof of vigour or public spirit which marked 
an inglorious reign was an appeal to the Princes 
of Christendom, to unite in a Crusade against the 
Infidels ; and the only result of it was a certain 
amount of treasure which flowed into his coffers, 
and was consumed in pomp and state. His avarice 
had made him odious to the Roman people ; their 
curses pursued him to the grave ; and when the 
College met to choose their ruler, their hall was 
protected by soldiers and cannon. 
Alexan- Two candidates distanced all compe- 

der VI. titors ; each of them the nephew of a 
Pope,— Roderic Borgia, and the same busy, clever, 



THE REFOEMATION AGE. 331 

and aspiring Julian della Eovera. The first was 
a man whose scandalous immoralities were the talk 
of Eome ; but he was the oldest and the richest. 
In case of his election, three Archbishoprics in 
Spain, and numerous benefices scattered over 
Europe, would be vacated and dispensed among 
his friends. So the younger Cardinal was left 
for another time ; and Alexander VI., the worst 
man that ever filled the Papal throne, ^ jnn 

r A. D. 1493. 

had the majority of voices. Then came 
the distribution of gifts among his creatures, — his 
palace to one, — an abbey, with its rich dependen- 
cies, to another, — a bishopric to a third, with costly 
furniture and delicious wines. His children, like 
those of his predecessor, were numerous ; and, with 
unstinted bounty, he placed them on a level with 
the nobles of Rome. His daughter's marriage 
was celebrated in the Vatican with lavish magni- 
ficence ; and all his energies and resources were 
soon expended in seconding the ambitious schemes 
of his son, the famous Caesar Borgia. In an age 
when wickedness was almost licensed, and any 
scruples about the means of attaining power passed 
with most for unmanly weakness, this man at- 
tained to a bad pre-eminence in guilt, and stands 
out as the representative of a class whom courage 
and genius and opportunity made utterly reckless 



332 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

and shameless, as if to show how much some could 
dare, and others endure, in a land where good 
and evil were utterly confounded, and shrines 
and sanctuaries had become places of pollution. 
Not content with ruling Rome by terror, hired 
bravoes being his ministers, and his father's name 
his tower of strength, he aspired to an independent 
Sovereignty over the States of the Church, and, 
by cruelty of the fiercest, or treachery of the 
basest, kind, cleared out of his path the great 
families who had made head against successive 
Popes, and maintained a rival influence in their 
respective cities. Cautious historians, Ranke 
among the number, report that he had his own 
brother murdered and thrown into the Tiber, the 
cause of hatred making even that crime more 
hideous ; others pause, and doubt the conclusive- 
ness of the evidence on this point, but with no 
thought of the charge being in itself improbable. 
His brother-in-law was certainly one of his victims. 
He was attacked on the steps of the palace, but 
escaped with life ; then, while sheltered under 
the Pope's roof *, and nursed by his wife and sister, 

* Perhaps the most extraordinary spectacle ever wit- 
nessed during the Christian era, all things considered, — 
taking into account the Romish claims as to the Papal su- 
premacy and the Romish doctrine of clerical celibacy, — 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 333 

his chamber was invaded by Caesar, who first 
drove out the ladies, and then made sure work by- 
having the wounded man strangled before his 
eyes. There is no need that we should settle 
what share Alexander had in his son's crimes, — 
how many he encouraged, or how many he de- 
plored. The excuse cannot be made that holy 
men have had undutiful children, and that the 
sternest justice cannot turn their heaviest misfor- 
tunes into crimes. Just as we know that the 
father ruled, and the son killed and plundered 
and ran riot in crime, so certainly does History 
record that the younger Borgia was countenanced 
and upheld by the elder in his daring and unprin- 
cipled schemes. The old man delighted in the 
success of his favourite child, however won, and 
esteemed himself happy in proportion as his crimes 
proved fruitful. Their plans and policy were the 
same, and the power and revenues of the Church 

was that which Rome presented on the days when a guard 
was set before the door of Alexander VI. to protect the 
husband of his own bastard daughter from the murderous 
assault of his own bastard son. And yet the moral pheno- 
menon is stranger still, — that this man handed on his powers 
unimpaired to his successor, and that millions still cling to 
a system of which it is an unquestioned dogma that in him 
the Spirit of Truth dwelt in unusual measure for the go- 
vernment and discipline of the Church. 



334 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

were employed for the one object of advancing 
the family greatness, and humbling their common 
rivals. Alexander died by poison ; and thoughtful 
men throughout Christendom, one fancies, must 
have breathed more freely when they heard that 
his disgraceful reign was ended. The poison was 
prepared by his own orders for a Cardinal whose 
wealth he hoped to inherit ; but one of the at- 
tendants proved false ; or, by mistake, the wrong 
dish was set before the Pope ; at any rate, the 
banquet, which was intended to be a murderous 
one, proved fatal to himself; and the Romans, 
who gathered round his corpse when it lay in 
state at St. Peter's, exulted like men from whom 
some heavy burden had been removed.* 

Then came a new varietv in this strange 
Julius 3X . . 

succession of rulers of Christ's Church* 

There had been ambitious Popes, and dissolute 
Popes, and Popes who were unscrupulous dis- 
pensers of ecclesiastical revenues and dignities, 
and Popes with little reputation for fair dealing in 
home politics and foreign negotiations ; now Eu- 
rope was to be astonished by the feats of a war- 
like Pope. For a brief interval there was a hope 
of better things, a gleam of light amidst the sur- 
rounding gloom ; for a feeble old man, remark- 

* See NOTE (B B). 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 335 

able among the Cardinals for his virtues and 
piety, was strangely preferred to his daring and 
unprincipled colleagues, took the appropriate name 
of Pius II., and then, after a reign of twenty- 
six days, escaped by a peaceful death from scenes 
unsuited to his nature, and from a task which was 
beyond his strength. His successor was 

J . ° A.D. 1503. 

the noted Julian della Rovera, — the yet 
more noted Julius IL, — who set himself to undo 
what Alexander VI. had done, — namely, to recover 
for the Church what Caesar Borgia, with his father's 
connivance, had appropriated to himself. Italy 
for the Pope seems to have been the dream of his 
life ; and, had his reign been longer, many think 
the dream would have been a reality = By making 
peace and making war, as either suited his pur- 
pose, — by courting or subduing his neighbours, — 
by vigour in council, — by courage in the field, — by 
the lavish use of wealth which he was ingenious 
in collecting, on one plea or another, from every 
part of Christendom, — by the dexterous use of 
spiritual weapons at one time, and by all the craft 
and guile of a purely temporizing policy at ano- 
ther, — he made his name terrible, and won the 
place which he coveted among kings and con- 
querors. He excommunicated the Republic of 
Venice, because it refused to restore, on demand, 



336 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

cities which had once belonged to the Roman 
States, — formed a league against them, to which 
France, Spain and the Emperor, were parties, — 
pardoned them when they were humbled and con- 
quered, — and then, when the French had served 
his purpose, dissolved his own league, and joined 
alliance with Venice to expel the strangers from 
Italy. He headed his own armies, delighted in 
the pomp and circumstance of war, stood in the 
trenches to encourage the storming party, at the 
siege of Mirandola, when the snow lay thick upon 
the ground, and, when the city was taken, entered 
it triumphantly through the breach, as Alexander 
might have done, or his namesake, the greatest of 
the Caesars. 

Julius, with all his faults, should have his due. 
He conquered for the Church, — or, at any rate, 
for his successors in the Roman See. He en- 
riched no nephews by simony or war. He was 
decorous in his own religious observances, and 
checked with a firm hand many ecclesiastical irre- 
gularities. He was a munificent patron of the arts, 
the friend of Raphael, the founder of St. Peter's. 
But, as the pretended Vicar of Christ upon earth, 
it may be doubted whether his infamous prede- 
cessor gave a greater shock to the moral feelings 
of religious persons who looked to Rome for light 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 337 

and guidance, than this soldier-priest. " The pa- 
tience of angels and of men," says Waddington, 
" was exhausted by this last mockery :" and verily 
men needed, not only an infallible interpreter, but 
another gospel, if they were to receive such a 
man as the earthly representative of the Prince 
of Peace. 

Such were the Church's rulers through thirty 
dark and troubled years. God bore with them in 
patience and in mercy, and left their city uncon- 
sumed. Europe heard the tale of their ambition 
and lust and cruelty, and gave them reverence 
still. Indulgences, signed with their hand, and 
sealed with their seal, were marketable commo- 
dities — nay, grew cheaper from day to day, and 
promised larger immunities. Some must have 
marvelled in secret that God should raise any of 
His creatures to such a height of power, and let 
them sink into the mire of pollution, — that the 
dispensers of pardons should seem to need abso- 
lution beyond common sinners, — that the light of 
holiness should be thus quenched where all men 
were taught to look for special guidance. To 
those who knew the mysteries of Conclaves*, and 
were acquainted with the morality of the New 
Testament, it must have seemed the strangest of 

* See NOTE (C C.) 
z 



338 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

all mysteries, that the juggle of an election, in 
which votes were notoriously purchased with be- 
nefices and gold, and political cabals intrigued as 
in the Councils of Princes, could turn a wicked 
priest into the accredited Vicegerent of Heaven. 
But to doubt, in an age like that, was like 
loosening all hold on the powers of the world to 
come. The time of endurance was prolonged. 
A successor was wanted for Julius II., 
and the Cardinals found one in Leo X., 
the same John de Medici who was thrust into 
the sacred college when he ought to have been at 
school. He proved a man of refined tastes and 
scholar-like acquirements, a lover of elegant La- 
tinity, a patron of artists and improvisatori, a 
companion of those who lived to enjoy and em- 
bellish life, — at Rome, discharging his graver 
duties with dignified propriety, — in his country 
retirement, varying the amusement of the chase 
with banquets among wits and poetasters, — no 
more devout than his predecessors, yet of more 
decorous pleasures, and more measured ambition. 
He longed to live a life of ease, surrounded with 
forms of beauty, and drinking in all that could 
please the ear or charm the fancy ; but he had 
fallen on evil times for a follower of Epicurus, 
and was startled from his dream of enjoyment by 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 339 

the notes of warning which preceded the Re- 
formation. While he was yet a Cardinal, Luther 
had visited Rome. Before he had been Pope five 
years, Europe was ringing with the Reformer's 
earliest challenge of Papal prerogatives. 

We must not Omit to notice the Advancement 

formation of a new School of Letters ° eainm S- 
among the causes which led to the Reformation. 
There was a growth of intellectual vigour which 
burst the restraints of a former age, and made it 
impossible that active, enquiring spirits through- 
out Christendom should yield unquestioning sub- 
mission to the tutelage of Rome. " In regard to 
the nations of new Europe," D'Aubigne has well 
said, " the age of infancy had passed away, and 
that of manhood had begun. To the child-like 
simplicity, which believed every thing, had suc- 
ceeded a spirit of curiosity, an intellect not to be 
satisfied without sifting every thing to the bottom. 
It was asked for what God had spoken to the 
world, and whether men had a right to station 
themselves as mediators between God and His 
creatures. There was only one thing which could 
have saved the Church, and this was to raise 
herself still higher above the people. To keep 
on a level with them was not enough. But, so 
z 2 



340 THE REFORMATION AGE. 

far from this, she was even found to be far be- 
neath them, having begun to descend at the same 
time that they began to rise. At the period 
when mankind began to ascend to the regions of 
intellect, the priesthood was grovelling below 
among earthly pursuits and interests." Litera- 
ture crossed the Alps, moreover, and founded 
schools among those who had passed hitherto for 
barbarians with the refined and cultivated men of 
Italy. That a German could speak Greek was 
talked of as a wonder, when Eeuchlin's fame 
began to spread throughout Europe ; and when 
Hebrew was added to his other accomplishments, 
and his study of Rabbinical books raised a storm 
against him as a heretic, curiosity was excited, 
and his scholars began to multiply. The relative 
position of scholars and churchmen may be in- 
ferred from a memorable saying of the Sorbonne, 
or Theological Faculty of Paris, " There is an 
end of religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew 
be permitted ;" and assuredly the permanence of 
the system, which they called by that holy name, 
was greatly endangered when men, without 
bidding from Priest or Pope, held in their hands 
the key which gave them access to the sacred 
text. Erasmus, too, a Dutchman, besides being 
the first Latin scholar of his age 5 was a free trans- 



THE REFORMATION AGE. 341 

lator, and a fearless commentator on Scripture. 
He edited Cyprian and Jerome, two of the most 
famous Latin fathers ; he translated Athanasius 
and Chrysostom from Greek into Latin ; ^nd 
while much was found in these ancient records 
that was inconsistent with Christianity in its 
simple purity, no intelligent and candid reader 
could help seeing that the pretensions of modern 
Popes had no counterpart in the Church of the 
third and fourth centuries. The enemies of the 
Reformation gave too much credit to the elegant, 
sarcastic and faint-hearted scholar, when they 
said that " Erasmus laid the egg 3 and Luther 
hatched it ; " but, unquestionably, the writings of 
the former were one of the many engines by 
which it pleased God to prepare men's minds for 
the great change that was coming. 



z 3 



342 LUTHER. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LUTHER. 

Luther was born at Eisleben, in Saxony, 
Luther's on the 10th of November, 1483. His 
parentage, parents were poor people, earning a 
bare living by hard toil, and compelled, of course, 
to bring up their children to frugal and indus- 
trious habits. His father was a miner, and his 
mother, we learn from himself, had often to carry 
a burden of wood on her back from the forest. 
Yet from the first, in the time of their deepest 
poverty, they valued learning for their children ; 
and at six years old little Martin could read and 
write with ease. As time went on, the blessing 
pronounced upon the godly was in John Luther's 
home. His store increased ; he moved to Mans- 
feld, and rose to some consideration among his 
fellow-townsmen. His house became the resort 
of some of the neighbouring schoolmasters and 
ecclesiastics, whose society he valued for his own 
sake, probably, and for that of his growing chil- 
dren. Thus, amidst the busy anxieties of working 



LUTHER. 343 

life, with occasional glimpses of more refined and 
cultivated minds, his son passed through the 
years of childhood to early youth. At school he 
learnt the Catechism, a few hymns and prayers, 
and the rudiments of Latin ; and was sent, at 
fourteen, to an institution of higher pretensions 
in the town of Magdeburg, his father's own taste 
of learning having fixed him in the resolve that 
no pains should be spared to make the boy a 
scholar. 

For a year or two from this time, the school 
poor youth served a hard apprenticeship to days - 
study. The ordinary allowance of food provided 
for the pupils left them only half satisfied; 
nothing could be spared from home to eke out 
Luther's scanty meal ; so what he could not earn, 
he was compelled to beg in the streets. " Bread 
for the poor scholars," " Bread for the love of 
God," was a common cry ; but the petition was 
accompanied with a concert of many voices, and 
chants and carols were the favourite strain where- 
with the young troop sought to touch the hearts 
of the obdurate, or repaid the offerings of charity. 
At Eisenach, to which place Luther was removed 
after a time, the same system prevailed, no sense 
of degradation attaching to the practice. Some 
progress was made in learning ; but the life he 

z 4 



344 LUTHER. 

led was a cheerless one for a sensitive and aspiring 
youth ; and painful often was the struggle when 
hunger drove him abroad for food, and the rude 
repulse of those who cared for neither prayer 
nor song made him feel the bitterness, if not the 
shame, of poverty. 

To (f endure hardness" for a time was no bad 
discipline for one who was to prove so <e good" 
a " soldier" of the cross. But kindness, too, 
was necessary to bring out the hidden qualities 
of his nature ; and God who, even then, was 
training His servant for future usefulness, raised 
up a friend for him, in the midst of strangers, 
whose love proved to him, at that critical season, 
a treasure beyond all price. One day, as he 
stood in the street, hungry and sick at heart, 
Ursula Cotta, the wife of a citizen of Eisenach, 
took pity on his friendless condition. She had 
marked the youth at church, and noticed his 
reverent demeanour; the peculiar sweetness of 
his voice had caught her ear ; and, now that she 
saw him repulsed at other doors, she opened hers 
to him without reserve, and gave him the food 
and the kindness for which he pined. The dame 
proved a second mother to Luther ; for not only 
did her house become his home, but his mind and 
heart seemed to expand together beneath her 



LUTHER. 345 

gentle influence, and the world itself had an al- 
tered look now that he lived in an atmosphere of 
peace and love. Henceforth his studies were 
pursued with greater earnestness. His time was 
given in succession to the classics, poetry and 
rhetoric, and in each of them he outstripped his 
class-fellows. His soul, at this happy time, was 
tuned to melody ; and music, which proved his 
delight and solace through a stormy life, was 
added to his more solid acquirements. His live- 
liness and good nature made him an universal 
favourite ; and, best of all, according to his light, 
he was fervent in seeking that heavenly guidance 
without which human wisdom is but folly. From 
the school he passed, in his eighteenth 

. ° A.D. 1501. 

year, to the University of Erfurth, dis- 
tinguished among his companions by great natural 
quickness, a retentive memory, an eager curiosity, 
and, yet more, by that devoutness and seriousness 
of spirit so often seen in those whom God in- 
tends for great things in his Church. 

For two years from this time Luther Luther at 
pursued the same even track, a free- Erfurth. 
hearted companion, yet studious and devout, com- 
manding the admiration of teachers and pupils by 
a genius and force of character which could not 
be overlooked or mistaken. Books were rare 



346 LUTHER. 

and dear, the art of printing being as yet in its 
infancy ; and it was only in convents and colleges, 
and here and there in the palace of some royal 
patron of letters, that a large collection could be 
found. Our young student was athirst for know- 
ledge, and the library at Erfurth was like a re- 
freshing spring, to which he resorted in his hours 
of leisure. One day he lighted upon a volume 
which fixed his attention, and was read for some 
time with the deepest interest. It was a Latin 
Bible, the first he had ever seen ; and great was 
his delight to find that God's message contained 
so much beyond the fragments which he had 
heard in the Church, or found in books of devo- 
tion. He read it for some time, and longed to 
have it for his own. Samuel's childhood and 
Hannah's song were the passages on which his eye 
first rested. He read of the " poor" being lifted 
" out of the dust," and " the beggar from the 
dunghill," to be placed by the side of princes, 
and little thought what the Providence of God 
had in store for himself; but the narrative 
charmed him by its beauty, and to have free 
access to this new source of enjoyment seemed to 
make a new sera in his life. A new sera it made, 
too, in the world's history, — this meeting between 
Luther and God's word ; for the doctrine which 



LUTHEK. 347 

he found in its pages first gave freedom to his 
own soul, and then made him bold enough to pro- 
claim to Christendom that it was cheated and 
enslaved while the " lively oracles" were hidden 
out of sight. 

In the same year Luther took his Takes Ms 
Bachelor's degree. The intense labour egree ' 
of his preparatory studies brought on a dangerous 
illness, and when he recovered from it, he still 
retained the solemn impressions of his hour of 
peril. There were now high resolves to do some- 
thing while life was spared; but no governing 
motive was at work to give directness to his 
course ; and two years later, when he became a 
docter of philosophy, his future vocation was yet 
to be chosen. His father longed to see him a 
lawyer. Distinguished, as he was, among his 
fellow-students, with some reputation already as a 
public lecturer, there was much to kindle the fire 
of ambition within him, and make him covet a 
conspicuous stage. But notoriety of another 
sort was in store for him, and the steps by which 
he was conducted to it were all appointed by a 
higher wisdom than that of the scholar or his 
friends. 

While his plans were still unset- Terrors of 
tied, a brother collegian, for whom conscience. 



348 LUTHER. 

he had a special regard, was suddenly struck 
down by death — some say was taken off by vio- 
lence. The question forced itself upon Luther's 
sensitive and anxious mind, " What if such a fate 
were mine ? How could / meet my God if the 
summons were thus sudden?" His life had been 
pure, but his conscience was ill at ease ; and the 
thought of a meeting with the Searcher of hearts 
confounded and appalled him. At another time, 
when on his way from Mansfeld to Erfurth, after 
a visit to his father, a violent storm overtook 
him. The thunder rolled, and the lightning 
flashed, and a bolt, which fell close to Luther's 
feet, showed how near he had been to death. 
He threw himself on his knees, and pleaded with 
God for life. In an agony of terror he vowed a 
vow unto the Lord. The world shall be for- 
saken, and life henceforth shall be made an offer- 
ing to God. 

Eesolvesto The storm ceased; Luther's fears 
be a monk, g^fled ; but the vow remained. 
There were no human witnesses, but it was 
registered in heaven ; and the man who abhorred 
a lie had no thought of breaking it. Come what 
may, the promise must be kept; the necessary 
sacrifices shall be made. Sober he had been 
hitherto, constant in his devotions, persevering in 



LUTHER. 349 

his studies, exemplary in all his deportment ; but 
henceforth he must be holy. He had drunk of 
the spring of knowledge, and was still athirst. 
A deeper, purer spring must be found somewhere 
which would satisfy all his spiritual cravings. 
Whither shall he go for rest and peace ? how 
secure a shelter from the temptations of life, and 
become pure, as he longs to be, from every taint 
of sin ? In a convent, surely, he will find what 
he wants, — among the men who serve God, day 
and night, with prayer and fasting, far away from 
the world's weary strife and seducing pleasures. 
So the customs of the age taught, and so Luther, 
in his ignorance, believed. On the 
17th of August, when three months 
were wanting to conclude his twenty-second year, 
the young collegian gathered his friends at a fare- 
well supper. There was music, as usual, to 
charm the ear ; and the conversation, which sea- 
soned their frugal meal, was the free, cheerful 
talk of men on whom the world's cares sat lightly, 
and whose spirits were buoyant with hope. 
Luther, after a time, checked their gaiety. He 
announces his purpose, and turns a deaf ear to 
their solicitations and remonstrances. Gloomy 
as the monk's life may seem to them, it is the 
life he has chosen. His mind was made up, and 



350 LUTHER. 

from a resolve once taken, approved alike by his 
judgment and his conscience, no human voice 
ever turned him back. That very night he 
knocked at the door of the Augustinian convent, 
and was admitted. He carried with him a Virgil 
and a Plautus for his worldly store ; — a strange 
selection for the monk that would be ; stranger 
still for the Reformer, and man of God, he was 
to be. 
Convent ^ was we ^ tnat ne > whose voice was 

Kfe * to open the doors of a hundred con- 

vents, and send forth their inmates to serve God 
in the world or the Church, should first be a 
prisoner himself. None could reproach him in 
after times for speaking of that which he knew 
not. " Truly," he said of himself once, " I have 
been a pious monk, and have followed the rules 
of my order more severely than I can describe. 
If ever monk had entered heaven by his monkery, 
surely I should have found my way thither. Had 
my course lasted longer, I should have been a 
martyr even to death by dint of prayer, watch- 
ings, readings, and other labours." As the 
youngest, or the most willing, of the brethren, 
the hardest services were imposed on him. The 
man who was a doctor but yesterday, and had the 
path of distinction laid open to him, was now 



LUTHER. 351 

porter and sweeper to the convent, waited like a 
servant on meaner men, and did their bidding 
without a murmur. When his in-door drudgery- 
was over, he sought the quiet of his cell, and gave 
himself to study. But even there his masters 
pursued him, and the calm, tranquil delights of 
monastic retirement he soon found were a vision, 
not a reality. " Come, come," said a rude voice, 
when his beloved books were spread out before 
him, " it is not by study that you can benefit the 
cloister, but by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, 
meat and money." So the bag was put upon his 
shoulder, and through the streets of Erfurth, in 
which he walked but lately as an admired scholar 
of the first university in Germany, he now went 
as a mendicant from door to door. 

The yoke which he had chosen Luther bore 
with the fortitude of an indomitable nature. 
Hope, too, sustained him under his burden. He 
was willing to be humbled to the dust, if thereby 
the flesh might become a willing servant, and his 
spirit be strengthened and purified. But, by 
degrees, this hope grew fainter. The holiness for 
which he panted was not yet attained. Watching, 
fasting, scourging, brought him no nearer to his 
end. " I tormented myself to death," he says, in 
describing this period of his life, "in order to 



352 LUTHER. 

procure peace with God for my troubled con- 
science ; but, surrounded with fearful darkness, 
I nowhere found it." His brother monks did 
not understand him. They went through the 
appointed routine of duty, and were satisfied; 
while the trifling conversation which amused their 
vacant hours was to him a weariness and a burden. 
Luther's Being excused, after a time, on the 

studies. intercession of some of his University 
friends, from the drudgery of his early days in the 
cloister, he betook himself with his usual ardour 
to study. He found one able and willing to help 
him in the study of Greek and Hebrew ; and the 
man, who was to enrich his country one day with 
his noble translation of the Scriptures into the 
mother tongue, was already preparing for his 
work, by acquainting himself with the original 
text. Other books were read with eagerness, 
especially those which treated of the great things 
of salvation ; and soon he learnt to esteem the 
great Augustine a master in theology, and a 
faithful expounder of God's word, beyond all to 
whom he had listened before. What was written 
a thousand years before about the corruption of 
the human will found an echo in his own heart. 
Along with the universal infection, too, he read 
of the universal remedy, — justification by the 



LUTHER. 353 

free grace of God* through the merits of the 
Saviour; and in his solitary readings, there, in 
the old convent library, the truth was brought to 
him, though as yet only half perceived and under- 
stood, which it became the business of his life to 
write on the mind and heart of Christendom. The 
Bible, too, itself, was there, — chained to a desk 
for the common use ; and the privilege of search- 
ing for himself into the records of eternal truth, — 
of drinking at the spring of heavenly wisdom, 
and getting an answer from Him whose word is 
light and life, — was not lost upon the enquiring 
monk. Nor was learning of another sort ne- 
glected. Though he was to be mighty in the 
Scriptures, he was not unskilled to use the 
weapons with which, in those days, all error was 
assailed, and all truth defended. He read the 
writings of the Schoolmen, and could draw dis- 
tinctions, and weave subtle arguments, and detect 
hidden sophistries, with those who delighted in 
those intellectual encounters. His clearer vision 
and sounder understanding made him rate such 
exercises at their proper worth ; he was too in- 
tent on great things in after life, — far too earnest 
in his love of truth for its own sake,- — to spend 
his time in logical fencing-matches, which could 
yield no profit ; but none could say that he did 

A A 



354 LUTHER. 

not know what learned men had written, though 
he was taught to put all worldly gifts and ac- 
complishments far below that heavenly wisdom 
which the peasant may have, and the philosopher 
may want. 

Still, while he was thus occupied, the great 
want remained. After repeated efforts to become 
holy, he was still baffled and disappointed. Shut 
out from active employments, cut off from con- 
genial company, he was left, month after month, 
to his own self-accusing thoughts, and, while he 
longed for purity, had a clinging sense of guilt 
which everywhere pursued him. So, with pallid 
cheek and sunken eye, he went through the ac- 
customed duties, or mused in solitude during long 
daylight and midnight hours, marvelling whether 
others missed the expected blessing like himself, 
or whether his deeper sinfulness made rest im- 
possible for him even in the place of sanctity. 
As his anxieties deepened, he lived more and 
more alone. His meals were of the most sparing 
kind, — his nights often sleepless through disquie- 
tude. On one occasion, some days had passed 
without his being seen, and a friend, alarmed for 
his safety, forced the door of his cell. He found 
Luther stretched senseless on the floor. Knowing 
the power of music over him, he collected some 






LUTHER. 355 

boys from the convent, and charged them to chant 
an anthem in their softest strain. Consciousness 
returned, and the monk revived. But the inward 
melancholy was too deep to be charmed away by 
song. His fondest hopes had proved vain. In- 
stead of finding perfection and spiritual freedom 
in the cloister, his chains were more galling than 
ever. 

There, however, in the house of Meeting with 
his bondage, Luther saw the dawn of Stau P ltz - 
a brighter day. The Vicar-General of the Au- 
gustines, Staupitz by name, came to inspect the 
convent ; and his visit, which to others was but 
a business of routine, proved like an angel's visit 
to Luther. The superior was a man venerable 
alike for his years and piety, well taught in the 
doctrine of Christ, and well pleased to make 
younger disciples partakers of his hope. The ap- 
pearance of Luther soon attracted his notice. 
He felt an interest in the young monk, which was 
heightened by all he heard. Confidence was soon 
established between them; and the secrets of 
Luther's bosom, hidden from common eyes, were 
unfolded to one who had passed through similar 
struggles, and could sympathize with his deepest 
sorrows. His past hopes, his present aims, his 
constant failures, all his spiritual longings and 



356 LUTHEK. 

anxieties, were told at length. " Instead of tor- 
turing yourself for your faults," was the answer 
of Staupitz, " cast yourself into the arms of the 
Eedeemer. Trust in Him, — in the righteousness 
of His life, in the expiation of His death. Keep 
not back. God is not angry with thee; it is 
thou who art angry with God. Listen to the 
Son of God, who became man to assure thee of 
the divine favour. He says to thee, ' Thou art 
my sheep ; thou hearest my voice ; none shall 
pluck thee out of my hand.'" Luther argued 
against a doctrine which seemed to make salva- 
tion so cheap a thing. His repentance was not 
deep enough ; he must be a changed man before 
he could be pardoned and accepted; others had 
penances without number imposed upon them ; 
and how should he, sinner as he was, escape so 
easily? " My son," answered the man, who had 
sounded the depths of his own heart, and now 
spoke with authority to others, " there is no true 
repentance but that which begins in the love of 
God and of righteousness. If you wish to be 
really converted, do not dwell upon all these mor- 
tifications and penances. Love Him who first 
loved thee." " Those words of yours about re- 
pentance," Luther wrote to Staupitz in later 
clays, " stuck fast in me, like an arrow drawn 



LUTHER. 357 

by a strong man ; " and it is certain that these 
well-timed conversations poured light upon his 
enquiring spirit, and made him rejoice like one 
whose chains were falling off. He searched the 
Scriptures, and found every word of Staupitz 
confirmed. The passages, which had most alarmed 
him hitherto, were now full of the sweetest com- 
fort. They seemed (to use his own most expressive 
simile) to " run to him from all sides, to smile 
upon him like friends, to spring up and play 
about him." 

His complete emancipation, however, was not 
the work of a month or a year. In the quietude 
and seclusion of the convent his spirit preyed 
upon itself. He forgot his hours, and left his 
task unsaid ; and then his carelessness in duty lay 
heavy on his conscience, and sleep was renounced 
till the tale of prayers was made up. Thus the 
rule of the convent was a yoke which sometimes 
lay heavy upon him ; yet was it borne now with 
more of cheerfulness as a part of the discipline 
appointed for him by Providence. Sometimes 
he escaped into the fields at daybreak; and, 
taking his Bible with him, the gift of Staupitz, 
preached to the shepherds under a tree, while 
they repaid his kindness by some strain of rustic 

A A 3 



358 LUTHER. 






music, to which he loved to listen between sleep- 
ing and waking. His studies, too, were more 
purely Biblical. His spirit was braced up by 
daily contact with the word of life ; and already 
was the store being laid up, which proved so 
useful and effective, when his great task was un- 
dertaken of bringing the almost forgotten Scrip- 
tures into open day. 

Luther or- The time came for Luther to be 

dained priest. ordained a priegt . and gladly now 

could he look forward to the holy solemnity, and 
speak with more of boldness to his fellow men of 
repentance and faith and holiness. His father 
had never forgiven his turning monk; but, as 
the day approached, Luther begged him to be 
present. John Luther came; and to Martin, 
whose home affections through life were pure and 
strong in no common measure, the day must 
have seemed the brightest that had 

May 2. 1507. & 

dawned upon him for years. The 
simplicity of the times, or the humble condition 
of the parties, is declared by the father's gift of 
twenty florins, just two pounds, which was pre- 
sented as a token of complete reconciliation. 

The earliest letter of Luther's which has come 
down to us belongs to this period, and it was 



LUTHER. 359 

written to John Braun, who is styled, at the head 
of it, the " Holy and Venerable Priest of Christ 
and Mary." He was Vicar of Eisenach, and 
had been the friend of Luther when he was a 
school-boy there. Early friendships never lost 
their hold on his warm and generous heart ; and 
it is interesting to see the man, who was now 
rapidly advancing to distinction, looking back to 
bygone scenes, and making the companion of his 
boyhood the sharer of his inmost thoughts. The 
letter runs thus, and breathes the humble and 
grateful spirit of the gospel which Luther was 
now learning, and about to impart to others : — 
" God, who is glorious and holy in all his works, 
having designed to exalt me exceedingly, — me a 
miserable and every way unworthy sinner, — and 
to call me, solely out of his abundant mercy, to 
his sublime ministry, it is my duty, in order to 
testify my gratitude for a goodness so divine and 
so magnificent (as far at least as dust can do it), 
to fulfil with my whole heart the office which is 
entrusted to me." Thus he gave himself to his 
great work, not knowing what was before him, 
but trained for God's service in the Church by 
that blessed Spirit which had taught him, like St. 
Paul, that Christ's love and grace had made him 
"■ a debtor unto all men." 



360 LUTHER. 

Removal to Staupitz had marked Luther as 

Wittemberg. one mean t f r usefulness on a public 
stage. In the following year, therefore, when a 
Professor of Philosophy was wanted for the new 
University of Wittemberg, the young priest was 
recommended by Staupitz to the Elector of 
Saxony, and willingly accepted. Prom 

A.D. 1508. \ . l 

Erfurth accordingly he removed to the 
place which his name has made so famous, and 
there his whole energies were devoted to his new 
duties. He would have chosen, if left to himself, 
some other sphere. His soul was athirst for sa- 
cred knowledge ; and gladly would he have given 
his days and nights to studies connected with 
the Scriptures ; but Staupitz was like a second 
father to him, and when Providence seemed to 
lead, Luther was now schooled to follow without 
doubt or misgiving. " I am well by the grace 
of God," he wrote to Braun soon after his re- 
moval, " were it not that I must study philosophy 
with all my might. Ever since I arrived at 
Wittemberg, I have eagerly desired to exchange 
this study for that of theology. The theology I 
mean is, that which seeks out the kernel of the nut, 
the heart of the wheat, the marrow of the bone. 
Howbeit God is God ; man is almost always de- 
ceived in his judgment ; but he is our God, and 



LUTHER. 361 

will conduct us by His goodness for ever and 
ever." 

The study of Greek and Hebrew Busy life 
was now resumed. A daily lecture on there - 
some portion of Scripture was delivered to the stu- 
dents ; and, learning as well as teaching, — getting 
his own faith confirmed } and his own judgment 
ripened, as he expounded the word of life, — he 
went through the book of Psalms and the Epistle 
to the Romans. To his other duties, on the 
solicitation of Staupitz, he soon added those of 
town preacher. For a time he shrank from so 
responsible a post ; " it was no light matter," he 
said, " to speak to men in the place of God ; " 
but when his modesty was overcome, and he stood 
up before the people as the expounder of God's 
word, he seemed to have found a congenial ele- 
ment. The doctrine was more pure, — the tone 
more free, — the manner at once more persuasive 
and more commanding, — than men had been used 
to for many generations. His opponents admit 
that, as an effective public speaker, he ranked 
with the first orators of his age. They describe 
his ready memory, his well-trained intellect, his 
clear musical voice, his admirable command of 
his mother tongue. He bore " like a torrent," says 
one, " on the minds of his hearers ; " he " had a 



362 LUTHER. 

lively and impetuous eloquence," says Bossuet, 
one of the most distinguished advocates of the 
Papacy, " which hurried people away, and en- 
tranced them." But his eloquence, then and in 
later life, was, in reality, the eloquence of truth 
and sincerity ; and men, who had been famishing 
on the dry husks of scholastic divinity, listened to 
the grave, but impassioned, earnestness of the 
still youthful professor, almost as to a prophet 
sent from heaven to wake up a slumbering age. 

Journey to ThuS t]iree buS ^ y earS Were S P ent > 

Rome. an( J Luther's reputation was spread 

far and wide as a man of zeal and 
learning and indefatigable activity. Then, events, 
in which it is not difficult to trace the guiding 
hand of Providence, carried him to Rome. To 
see the Holy City, the capital of Christendom, 
the abode of him who was the Church's visible 
Head and Lord, was the dearest wish of Luther's 
heart. A dispute among the convents of his 
order opened a way for him. His talents and 
reputation recommended him to some of their 
number as a fitting advocate to plead their cause 
before the Pope. He went up to Rome with 
trembling joy, like that of a Jewish youth ap- 
proaching, for the first time, the City and Temple 
of his God. " Hail to thee, holy Rome, made 



LUTHEK. 363 

holy by the blood of martyrs," he exclaimed on 
his arrival, falling on his knees, and raising his 
hands to heaven in a transport of thankfulness. 
He walked the streets, and sought out the most 
famous places, counting the very dust to be sa- 
cred. He entered into its homes, mingled with 
its citizens, was admitted to the confidence of its 
priests ; — and, to his horror and confusion, he 
found it a sink of abominations. Julius II. sat 
in the chair of St. Peter ; and a strange successor 
to the fisherman of Galilee must one like Luther, 
so devout and so unworldly, have thought the 
Pontiff who delighted in war, and led soldiers to 
the breach. Yet more appalling, however, to 
the simple, pure-minded German, was the de- 
moralization of the priests. He heard their pri- 
vate talk, and found they were mockers of the 
sacred mysteries. He joined with them in the 
celebration of the mass, and his ears were shocked 
with profaneness at the very altar. He carried 
his own devoutness with him into all companies, 
but met with raillery, instead of sympathy, from 
his brother priests. The citizens talked freely 
of the vices of Alexander VI. and the murders 
of Cassar Borgia, and that not in whispers, as 
men might speak of some incredible wickedness, 
but in a tone of indecent levity. To Luther the 



364 LUTHEE. 

prodigy he saw was startling and bewildering. 
The place was holy no doubt ; the Church which 
ruled there was the mother of all churches, God's 
witness and the world's light through successive 
ages. Among the tombs of apostles, — on the 
very spot where martyrs had given their lives 
as an offering to Christ, — how could the faithful 
seed die out, or the heavenly blessing be for- 
feited ? Yet sorely tainted with impiety was this 
spot to which his eyes had turned so fondly ; and 
sad and sick at heart, lonely and full of grave and 
solemn thoughts, he paced the famous streets, and 
surveyed the venerable relics of ancient Rome, 
or beheld the rising glory of St. Peter's. While 
there, doubtless, he wished himself back again 
among his old haunts at Wittemberg ; yet after- 
wards he rejoiced in the visit as having been 
most important and gainful. " I would not for 
a hundred thousand florins have missed seeing 
Rome," he said. " I should always have felt an 
uneasy doubt whether I was not, after all, doing 
injustice to the Pope. As it is, I am quite satis- 
fied on that point." 

At Rome, Luther made no question of what was 
told him respecting the virtues of consecrated 
spots and guarded relics, but joined the stream 
of devotees who rushed hither and thither, and 



LUTHER. 365 

hoped, with the blindest of them, to win the pro- 
mised blessing. It was a grief to him, he tells 
us, that his father and mother were still alive ; 
for, by virtue of masses and penances, as he then 
thought, he could have delivered their souls from 
purgatory. He climbed the Sacred Staircase 
upon his knees, in expectation of the promised 
indulgence, and never doubted the tradition that 
it had been miraculously transported from the 
house of Pilate, and was consecrated by the foot- 
steps of the Son of God. Yet when he returned 
to Wittemberg, he taught, in public and in pri- 
vate, like one who had outgrown these childish 
follies. He discoursed of the Law and the Gospel, 
— he pointed to the Lamb of God as the one sin- 
offering, — he called men to repentance and a 
living faith, — with so much clearness and force, 
that the learned could not gainsay his doctrine, 
while the humble and pious hung delighted on 
his lips. Such were the anomalies of this stage 
in the Reformer's progress. " Not yet " (to 
quote the expressive language of Ranke) " was 
Luther at one with himself. He still cherished 
opinions fundamentally at variance with each 
other. But all his writings breathe a youthful 
courage, still restrained within the bounds of 
modesty and reverence for authority, though ready 



366 LUTHEK. 

to overleap them ; and a genius, moreover, intent 
on essentials, tearing asunder the bonds of sys- 
tems, and pressing forwards in the new path it 
has discovered." 

Life at From Eome Luther returned to his 

Wittemberg. duties at the University, a sadder and 
a wiser man. Staupitz again urged him on to 
dignities which he would have declined, pressing 
him to become a Doctor of Divinity, — an elevated 
degree for one so young, and binding him in a 
special manner to the studies most congenial to 
his taste. Yet the responsibilities of the post 
alarmed him. He made many objections, which 
were all overruled by his friend. " Look out, I 
pray you, for a more worthy person ; " — " I am 
weak and sickly, and have not long to live ; " — 
" None but the Holy Spirit can make a Doctor 
of Theology," he said, at last. " Do what your 
convent asks," replied Staupitz, " and what I, 
your Yicar- General, command. You promised 
to obey us." " But I am poor, and have not 
wherewith to pay the fees." " The Prince will 
do that for you," was the rejoinder. And so at 
twenty -nine Luther became a Doctor. 

In his oath he promised manfully to 

A.D. 1512. 

defend the truth of the Gospel ; and 



LUTHER. 367 

never was oath more faithfully kept. By argu- 
ment he maintained the doctrine which he had 
received, not from men, but from God. By learn- 
ing and industry he did what he could to explain 
to others the letter and spirit of Christianity. 
But better than all his accomplishments was the 
life of faith and charity by which his lessons were 
enforced and illustrated. His letters of this 
period overflow with tenderness, and are marked 
by a spirit of large and generous forbearance, 
while his friendly exhortations are singularly ju- 
dicious and appropriate. " I learn that you are 
agitated by many tempests," he said one day to 
a burdened brother, " and that your spirit is 
tossed up and down upon the billows. The cross 
of Christ is portioned out over all the earth, and 
each one receives his part. Do not you, then, 
reject that which is fallen to you. Rather re- 
ceive it as a holy relic, not in a vessel of gold and 
silver, but in a meek and patient heart, which is 
far better." " Show a gentle and loving spirit 
towards the prior of Nuremberg," he wrote to 
John Lange, who had taught him Hebrew in the 
Convent, and whom he now made Prior at 
Erfurth ; " this is fitting, inasmuch as he has 
put on a sour and bitter spirit. Bitter is not 
expelled by bitter, — that is, devil by devil ; but 



368 LUTHER. 



sweet expels bitter, — that is to say, the finger of 
God casts out devils." A plague broke out at 
Witteniberg, and scattered most of the teachers 
and students. " You advise me to flee," he writes 
to a friend ; " but whither shall I flee ? I hope 
the world will not go to wreck though Friar 
Martin fall. If the disease makes progress, I will 
disperse the friars in all directions ; but for myself 
I am stationed here, and obedience permits me 
not to flee till He who has called me shall recall 
me. Not that I do not fear death," he adds, with 
the candour which never forsook him, " for I am 
not the Apostle Paul, only his commentator ; 
but I hope the Lord will deliver me from fear." 
While he lived, he longed to do good unto all 
men, and was watchful for opportunities of im- 
parting some spiritual gift to those who sought 
his advice, or were willing to receive it. A monk 
who had spent some time at Wittemberg, and 
left some trifling commissions to be executed by 
Luther when he went away, has thus attained a 
place amorjg his countless correspondents, and the 
letter of business, which became a letter of pious 
counsel, has been preserved. " The tunic of 
Brussels cloth," he says, " and the monk's gown, 
and the book you wrote about, are all sold ; they 
produced two florins and a half, and the money 






LUTHEK. 369 

has been paid according to directions ; " then, 
turning to graver matters, he adds, " I should 
like much to know how it is with your soul. Is 
it not weary of its own righteousness ? Does it 
breathe at length, and confide in the righteous- 
ness of Christ ? O, my brother, learn to know 
God, and Christ crucified. Take care not to pre- 
tend to such a purity as will make you unwilling 
to acknowledge yourself a sinner; for Christ 
dwelleth in none but sinners here. He came down 
from heaven, where He dwelt among the 
righteous, that He might dwell also with sinners. 
Meditate carefully on this love of Christ, and 
you will derive unspeakable blessing from it. If 
you believe these things firmly as you ought, 
receive thy still ignorant and erring brethren as 
Jesus Christ has received thee. Bear with them 
patiently ; make their sins thine own ; and if 
thou hast any thing good, communicate it unto 
them. It is a sad righteousness which will not 
bear with others, because it finds them wicked, 
and which thinks only of seeking the solitude of 
the desert, instead of doing them good by prayer, 
example and patience. If thou art the lily and 
the rose of Christ, know that thy dwelling is 
among the thorns ; only take care that thou do 
not, by thy impatience and rash judgments and 

B B 



370 LUTHER. 

hidden pride, become thyself a thorn. Christ 
reigns in the midst of his enemies. Had He 
been pleased only to live among the good, and to 
die only for those who loved Him, for whom, I 
ask, would He have died, and among whom would 
He have lived ? " Yet while he found time to 
sell tunics and monk's gowns, he was perhaps the 
busiest man in Germany. His account of his 
occupations is amusing, yet most instructive, re- 
minding us of that unbounded diligence which 
enabled him to diffuse himself, as it were, through 
Christendom, when his presiding mind became 
the spring of a vast, complicated movement, af- 
fecting the destinies of many nations. " In 
labours more abundant" might have been his 
motto for the thirty years which followed the 

period we speak of up to the week in 
a.d. 1516. which he both worked and died< « J 

almost constantly require two secretaries or 
chancellors," he writes, " for I do nothing all day 
long but write letters. I am preacher to the 
convent, reader of prayers, chaplain at table, 
pastor and parish minister, rector of the studies, 
vicar-general, — that is, prior ten times over, — 
inspector of ponds of Litzkau, counsel for the 
men of HerL'berg, reader of St. Paul, commen- 
tator on the Psalms. I have seldom time to say 



LUTHER. 371 

my hours and chant ; to say nothing of my com- 
bat with flesh and blood, the devil, and the 
world. See how lazy I am." 

It is interesting to see so much of Luther's 
inner mind at this particular stage of his life. 
We learn that it was not a barren doctrine that 
he contended for in after years, but a doctrine 
which had penetrated his own soul, and elevated 
and purified his whole character. Before he con- 
ceived the notion of being a Reformer, he was the 
humble, painstaking, conscientious, large-hearted 
Christian. His position was no common one for 
a man of his age, who had started in life without 
patronage or connexions. He was the well- 
trained theologian, the admired lecturer, the ar- 
biter of disputes, the foremost man in a rising 
university, the favoured nominee of the wisest 
Prince in Germany; but better than all, consi- 
dering the enterprize that was before him, his 
" feet" were " shod with the preparation of the 
gospel of peace ; " and it was in Christ's name, 
and as one who had partaken largely of Christ's 
Spirit, not certainly from any love of strife, or 
with any wish for fame, that his great work was 
undertaken. 



B B 2 



372 LUTHER. 

Tetzel and Luther was busy with his own 

Indulgences. wor ^ seeking peace with all men, 
and using his gifts faithfully for the Church of 
which he was an obedient son, when great ex- 
citement began to prevail in some parts of Ger- 
many, arising out of the sale of Indulgences by 
emissaries from Rome. This had become a fa- 
vourite mode of raising money of late; and as 
the patience and bounty of Christendom seemed 
well nigh inexhaustible, so the avarice of the 
Papal Court, and the effrontery of its busy 
agents, grew rapidly in this time of deepest de- 
generacy. A Turkish war was talked about 
again and again, and supplies were wanted to pay 
the armies of Christendom ; but the Infidel re- 
mained secure in his strongholds, and what was 
paid into the Roman treasury was never accounted 
for. Latterly a new plea had been invented. 
The Church, which was built over the graves of 
St. Peter and St. Paul, lay in ruins ; the bones 
of the holy martyrs, said the piteous story, were 
exposed to wind and rain. What more blessed 
work for the faithful than to rear a monument 
worthy of the dead, to which living pilgrims 
might resort in future ages ? Commissions were 
granted by the Pope to levy funds for this pur- 
pose by the sale of Indulgences ; particular dis- 



LUTHER. 373 

tricts were assigned to favoured persons, who 
gave money for the privilege, and made a good 
profit generally before their work was finished. 
In fact, pardons for men's souls were farmed, 
like highway tolls, to the best bidder, and then 
hawked by retail among the poor, blinded people.* 
In the course of the year 1517, a monk of the 
name of Tetzel, who had chosen Germany for his 
market, began to ply his trade with unusual zeal 
and success. When he came near a town, notice 
of his mission was conveyed to the authorities. 
" The grace of God and of St. Peter is before 
your gates," was the style of his proclamation. 
Instantly the whole place was astir. Priests 
and nuns, young and old, trades with their ban- 
ners, and magistrates with their symbols of office, 
went forth in solemn procession to meet this mes- 
senger of glad tidings. Bells rang and music 
played, and the streets were thronged with muU 
titudes eager to see the spectacle, and to secure 
the blessing. When the salutations were ended, 
the whole cavalcade proceeded to the principal 
church, — the Pope's Bull, or proclamation of 
grace, carried on a cloth of gold, leading the 
way, — and his officer, the chief Indulgence-mer- 
chant, following next, with a great red cross in 

* See NOTE (DD). 

B B 3 



374 LUTHEK. 

his hand. The church is filled; the cross is 
placed upon the altar ; the people look on it in 
silent awe. Tetzel mounts the pulpit, and, in a 
loud and commanding tone, begins to address 
them. The substance of some of his puffing ex- 
hortations is preserved, and assuredly it would 
have been a pity if they had perished. Men 
ought to know what language was heard in 
Christian churches when the Reformation began. 

" Indulgences," he said, " are the most pre- 
cious and sublime gift of God. There is no sin 
too great for an indulgence to remit; and if a 
man should commit something too shocking to be 
spoken, let him pay, — let him pay well, and it 
will be forgiven him. Think that for each mor- 
tal sin you must, after confession and contrition, 
do penance for seven years, either in this life or 
in purgatory. Now, how many mortal sins are 
committed in a day, — in a week ; yet more in a 
month, a year, a whole life. Ah ! these sins are 
almost innumerable ; and innumerable sufferings 
must be endured for them in purgatory. But 
now, by means of these letters of Indulgence, 
you can at once, for life, (in all cases except four, 
which are reserved to the Apostolic See,) and 
afterwards at the hour of death, obtain a full re- 
mission of all your pains and sins. . . . But more 



LUTHEK. 375 



than this ; Indulgences not only save tjf.'e living, — 
they save the dead. For this repentance even is 
not necessary. Priest, noble, merchant, wife, 
young girls, young men, hear your friends, your 
parents, crying to you from the bottom of the 
abyss. At the very instant when the piece of 
money chinks on the bottom of the strong box, 
the soul comes out of purgatory, and flies straight 
to heaven." 

Luther was seated one day, doing his priest's 
work, in the confessional at Wittemberg. Citizen 
after citizen presented himself for absolution, and 
each acknowledged himself guilty of some grievous 
sin. The man of God gave them counsel and 
reproof, — exhorted them to repentance, — charged 
them solemnly and affectionately to offend no 
more. What was his surprise to hear the peni- 
tents declare that they meant to sin on ? They 
have a pardon made out under the Pope's hand ; 
and priests and monks could not annul his sen- 
tence. " Except ye be converted" a voice sounded 
from the confessional, " you will all perish." In 
vain they argue and remonstrate ; Luther is im- 
moveable. They must cease to do evil, and learn 
to do well, or they would have no pardon from 
God. 

B B 4 



376 LUTHER. 

All Saints' Tetzel, when he heard of what had 

Eve - passed at Wittemberg, began to rave. 

Devout and thoughtful persons, as the rumour 
was spread abroad, rejoiced that one was found to 
speak out what was hidden in many hearts. 
Luther, compelled to take his stand, first preached 
against Indulgences, and then resolved to assail 
them in the most public manner. All Saints' 
Day was approaching, and, in compliment to the 
festival, a new church, which the Elector of 
Saxony had built in Wittemberg, and enriched 
with a vast number of precious relics, was to be 
thrown open to the multitude. A great assem- 
blage was expected ; numbers would flock in from 
the surrounding country ; for an indulgence was 
promised to all who worshipped and confessed 
there before the day was over. On the eve of 
Oct 31 1517 tnat ^ a y Luther fastened to the 
door of the church his celebrated 
ninety-five propositions. Men were waiting for 
a voice like that, and, when it came, they won- 
dered and rejoiced as if a prophet or an angel had 
spoken ; but it will be a great mistake to fancy 
that any thing like the Protestant doctrine upon 
these parts of the Romish system had grown up, 
as yet, in Luther's mind. Much was admitted, 
which he learnt soon afterwards to doubt, and 



LUTHER. 377 

went on boldly to deny. The authority of the 
Pope was as little questioned as the authority of 
Christ himself; and the flagrant abuses, which 
were connected with opening a market for the 
sale of pardons, were all ascribed to unscrupulous 
men, who abused their powers. " Anathema to 
him," so run some of these famous sentences, " who 
speaks against the truth of the Apostolical par- 
dons; but a blessing on him who opposes the 
licentiousness of these preachers." — " Christians 
must be taught that the Pope thinks not, nor 
wishes, that any one should in any wise compare 
the act of buying Indulgences with any act of 
mercy." — " Christians must be taught that the 
Pope, having more need of a prayer offered with 
faith than of money, more desires the prayer 
than the money, when he distributes Indul- 
gences." — "Christians must be taught that, if 
the Pope knew of the extortions of the Indul- 
gence preachers, he would rather the metropo- 
litan church of St. Peter were burnt than see it 
built with the skin, the flesh and the bones of 
his sheep." Other statements were in a higher 
strain, recalling men from lying vanities and hurt- 
ful superstitions to the true principles of Chris- 
tianity. " They are the enemies of the Pope and 
of Christ, who, to favour the preaching of In- 



378 LUTHER. 

dulgences, forbid the preaching of the word of 
God." — " The true treasure of the Church is the 
holy gospel of the glory and grace of God." — 
" Every true Christian, living or dead, has part 
in all the good things of Christ, or of the Church, 
by the gift of God, and that without letter of In- 
dulgence." — " Fie on the prophets, who say to 
Christ's people, the Cross ! the Cross ! and show 
us not the cross ! " " Fie on the prophets, who 
say to Christ's people, Peace ! Peace ! and give 
us not peace !" 
Commotion Europe was ready for the message, 

throughout we naV e said ; and so it ran swiftly 
Europe. 

from country to country. " It was 

as if the angels themselves had been the messen- 
gers," says one historian, writing of what he saw 
and heard. In fifteen days the memorial was 
circulated through Germany, and then it flew 
in every direction, as on the wings of the wind, 
till it travelled to the very ends of Christendom. 
It reached the Prior in his convent, who, finding 
in them the echo of his own thoughts, ex- 
claimed with joy, " The man we have been look- 
ing for so long has come at last." It reached the 
Bishop in his palace ; and he could but say, 
" This is all Catholic truth, yet, for peace sake, 
let the man forbear." It reached the young 



LUTHER. 379 

Myconius, the future historian of the Reforma- 
tion ; and, reading it with a brother monk in a 
corner of the cloister, he became from that hour 
a zealous convert and disciple. It reached the 
aged Reuchlin, who had paved the way for 
Luther by bringing his Greek and Hebrew learn- 
ing to bear on the sacred writings ; and, calling 
to mind his own battles with the monks, he cried 
out with thankfulness, " Now I shall have peace ; 
for this man will give them enough to do." It 
reached Erasmus, in Holland, who said that 
Luther was " cutting deep into the flesh, but 
the disease was incurable without it." It reached 
the Emperor Maximilian ; and the wily politician, 
thinking only of his own battles with the Pope, 
wrote to the Elector of Saxony, " Take good 
care of that Luther, for we may want him some 
day." The propositions were read and canvassed 
in France and England and Spain ; and as the 
rumour of them was spread abroad, thousands of 
nameless men, who were little versed in theology, 
but saw with their own eyes to what a height 
Romish tyranny had grown, blessed the brave 
monk in their own quiet homes, and wished him 
God speed in his onward course. 

Luther's new Here, then, was a great crisis in 
position. Luther's life. He had reached a 



380 LUTHER. 

position from which his convictions and his 
honesty would not allow him to recede ; yet to 
be the talk of Europe as one who was in rebel- 
lion against the Church, was far from his 
thoughts when the contest began, and quite con- 
trary to his wishes. We know with what feelings 
he entered on the struggle which lasted through 
his life ; for his own pen has written it ; and no 
man who reads the description with an honest 
mind will doubt its perfect truthfulness. " I 
was alone," he writes, " and thrown into this 
struggle without weighing the matter maturely. 
Under such circumstances, I gave up to the Pope 
many essential articles. Who was I, a poor 
miserable monk, that I should make head against 
the majesty of the Pope, before which the kings 
of the earth, — nay, earth itself, hell and heaven, — 
trembled ? What I suffered during the first and 
second years, — into how deep a dejection I fell, — 
cannot be conceived by those who, with easy con- 
fidence, have since rushed along the beaten path 
to attack the Pope with such fierceness and pre- 
sumption. Obtaining no light to light me in my 
dark path from the dead, mute masters (I speak 
of the books of the theologians and priests), I 
desired to seek the living counsel of the Churches 
of God ; so that, if there existed pious men, illu- 



LUTHER. 381 

mined by the Holy Spirit, they might take com- 
passion on me, and give me sound and assured 
advice for my own good, and that of all Christen- 
dom. But it was impossible for me to recog- 
nize them. I looked only to the Pope, cardi- 
nals, bishops, theologians, canonists, monks, and 
priests ; it was from them I sought the Spirit ; 
for I had so thoroughly filled and stuffed myself 
with their doctrine, that I no longer knew whe- 
ther I was awake or asleep. Had I then braved 
the Pope, as I do now, I should have expected 
the earth to open and swallow me up on the spot, 
as it did Korah and Abiram." 

Still, while he clung to authority, and com- 
mended the Pope (ignorantly, we must presume,) 
as one " worthy of a better age," he was taking 
his ground firmly and resolutely, like a man in 
whose eyes duty was every thing, and who knew 
of but one supreme law and All-wise Ruler. The 
prior and sub-prior of the Augustinian convent 
at Wittemberg came to him in early days, and,, 
like little men, zealous for their little objects,, 
prayed him to be quiet, as their enemies, the 
Franciscans, would be sure to turn any evil re- 
port to their disadvantage at Bome. " Beloved 
father," calmly replied Luther, Augustinian as 
he was, and wishing well to the reputation of hi& 

* B B 7 



382 LUTHER. 

order, " all this affair will presently fall to the 
ground, if it be not undertaken in the name of 
the Lord ; but if it be so, we must leave it to the 
Lord to finish it." His principles, too, were be- 
coming clearer and better defined, and the para- 
mount authority of Scripture was coming out more 
distinctly to view. A voice was soon heard from 
Rome, challenging the ninety-five propositions. 
It came from one Prierias, a man with high- 
sounding titles, " Prior- General of the Dominican 
Order, Master of the Sacred Palace, Censor of 
the Press," and asserted as amongst the "funda- 
mental or cardinal doctrines, of the gospel, that 
" whoever did not acquiesce in the doctrine of the 
Roman Church and the Pope as an infallible 
rule of faith, whence even Scripture itself de- 
rives strength and authority, was a heretic ; " and 
that " the Roman Church could decree what it 
would concerning faith and morals in word and 
deed." Part of Luther's answer was as follows ; 
and it contains the germ of the doctrine which 
he helped to write on ten thousand hearts before 
many years were over. " St. Paul has said, 
6 Prove all things ; hold fast that which is 
good ; ' — and again, ' Though we, or an angel 
from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than 
that which we have preached to you, let him be 



LUTHER. 383 

accursed.' St. Augustine, too, once wrote thus 
to St. Jerome, ' I have learned to render the 
honour of infallibility to the writers of the Ca- 
nonical Books, and to none besides. As to others, 
I do not believe the things that they teach, 
simply because it is they who teach them.' By 
these fundamentals, if you, Prierias, under- 
stand me, you will see that your whole dialogue 
is overthrown." 

A more formidable opponent was one Doctor 
Eck, a scholar and divine of high character, who 
had been a friend of Luther's, but is known to 
posterity as one of his bitterest and most perse- 
vering assailants. He wrote like a schoolman, at- 
tacking the " Propositions" with weapons such 
as were wielded by the disciples of Aristotle ; 
but there was a plentiful admixture of terms of 
abuse, which Luther warmly resented, but too 
often imitated in his controversial writings. " He 
calls me drunkard," was the Reformer's com- 
plaint to a friend, " Bohemian, moreover, and 
heretic, a seditious and impertinent fellow, besides 
some lighter reproaches, such as sleepy and silly, 
and, above all, a despiser of the Sovereign Pontiff." 
In Luther's reply there is a pithy little sentence 
which would go far to settle the Romish contro- 
versy, if men would apply to theology the common- 



384 LUTHER. 

sense principles which govern their opinions in 
other matters. Writing to one who professed 
himself both an Aristotelian and a Christian, he 
argues thus : — "It is certainly impudent in any 
one to teach, as the philosophy of Aristotle, any 
dogma which cannot be proved by his authority. 
You grant this. Well, then, it is a fortiori the 
most impudent of all things to affirm in the 
Church, and among Christians, anything that 
Jesus Christ himself has not taught. Now, in 
what part of the Bible is it said that the treasure 
of Christ's merits is in the hands of the Pope ? " 
Some attempts were made at a reconciliation. 
Eck excused himself by saying that the offensive 
work was not meant for the public, but was sent 
as a friendly communication to his Bishop ; a 
strange apology certainly for writing in a style 
so little episcopal. But the breach was never 
healed ; and Eck and Luther are known to pos- 
terity, not as friends, but as rival disputants. 

The spring and summer of 1518 were a sort of 
breathing-time in the Reformer's life, after the 
first note of war was sounded, and before the ac- 
tual strife commenced. Rome had been defied, 
or rather, some of her favourite doctrines had been 
challenged; for defiance of the Pope, we have 
seen, would have been disclaimed by Luther at 



LUTHEK. 385 

this period as eagerly as by the most submissive 
of Cardinals ; and, as yet, no censure was heard 
from the patient, easy-living Leo X. In the in- 
terval, Luther was both learning and teaching, — 
gathering fresh light from study and reflection, 
and proclaiming, with yet more of clearness and 
force, the doctrine which reached men's con- 
sciences, and touched their hearts. Increasing 
numbers flocked to Wittemberg, and his pulpit 
in the old Church was surrounded by students 
and townsmen, as well as strangers from a dis- 
tance, who rejoiced to hear his plain comments 
on the word of God, or his spirit-stirring exhor- 
tations to repentance and a holy life. His voice 
was heard in other places, too, and seed was sown, 
which bore goodly fruit in later years. He tra- 
velled to Heidelberg to attend a Chapter of his 
Order; and there, in the presence of the Count 
Palatine, and the learned men of the University, 
he held a public disputation, which, not only at- 
tracted many hearers, but won some serviceable 
helpers to the good cause. Martin Bucer, and 
two faithful friends, listened to him in public, and 
conversed with him in private; and in later 
years these men dispensed, among many thousand 
hearers in England and in Germany, what they 
had first heard from Luther, and then found, by 
c c 



386 LUTHER. 

their own study and reflection, to be the very 
truth of God. 

Luther at At last, in August 1518, came a 

Augsburg. citation from Leo to Eome ; but, on 
the interposition of the Elector, a trial was sub- 
stituted before Cardinal Cajetan, the Pope's Le- 
gate, at Augsburg. There, all was mildness and 
civility on the judge's part. Luther's own account, 
Oct. 11, 12, 13. written on the spot, describes their 
1518, meetings as being of the most ami- 

cable kind ; but his mind was made up by this 
time to bear every thing, and retract nothing. 
" The Legate," he wrote to his friends, " says that 
he desires to act the part of a father to me ; and 
yet he will hear nothing from me but the words, 
I retract and acknowledge my error ; and these 
words I will never utter. He always styles me 
his dear son. I know how little that means. 
Still I doubt not that I should be to him one of 
the dearest of men, if I would utter the single 
word, Revoco. But I will not become a heretic 
by renouncing the faith that has made me a 
Christian." On the 19th of October Luther left 
the city privately before daybreak, having de- 
posited with his friends a solemn " Appeal," to 
be affixed to the door of the Cathedral, " from 



LUTHER. 387 

the Most Holy Lord, the Pope, not well-informed, 
to the same Lord, when he should be better in- 
formed" Thousands blessed him going and re- 
turning ; and the Reformer himself, now that the 
line was crossed, and he had been confronted 
with authority, seems to have looked up to the 
Pontifical throne with an eye less dazzled, and a 
heart more free. 

Leipsic, one of the principal towns of _ : 

' r m r Luther at 

Saxony, was the next public stage from Leipsic. 
which his doctrine was proclaimed, — 
Doctor Eck being his challenger, and Duke 
George, the Elector's cousin, among the listeners. 
The principal subject of discussion was the Pope's 
supremacy. On that Luther had talked till lately 
like a zealous Papist; but now he was begin- 
ning to take higher ground : the early fathers 
were quoted triumphantly against the later ones ; 
and courtiers and schoolmen, who filled the great 
Hall of Assembly, heard new and startling lan- 
guage respecting the mistakes of councils and the 
paramount authority of Holy Scripture. Thus 
was his doctrine sown widely through Germany ; 
the heart of the nation was stirred ; Luther's 
name became a household word in. towns and vil- 
lages; and, month by month, his friends grew 
more confident, while the thunders of the Vatican 

* c c 2 



388 LUTHER. 

were silent, and the brave monk was still un- 
touched. 

Luther's Nor was his pen idle during this 

writings. "b llS y and anxious period. He wrote 
letters to the Pope in a strain at once dignified 
and respectful; for slowly and painfully was he 
weaned from the belief that all truth was pre- 
cious in the eyes of the Holy Father, and that all 
perversions of it came from his unworthy officers. 
For scholars and divines he published his Latin 
Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians*, re- 
asserting, almost with apostolic force and clear- 
ness, the doctrine of justification by the Grace of 
God, through the merits of the Divine Redeemer ; 
while for the people, who knew only their mo- 
ther German, he sent forth plain tracts, ex- 
pounding the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Com- 
mandments, and thus taught them, in his own 
fatherly tone, and simple, nervous style, the rudi- 
ments of the Christian faith. 

Meanwhile, all that came from his pen was 
caught up and carried by a thousand hands 
through Germany. Printers and booksellers 
were on the side of the new doctrine, and proved 
more effective allies than noble and royal patrons. 
Men, who had- been monks, renounced the clois- 
* See NOTE (E E). 



LUTHER. 389 

ter, and earned a living by going from town to 
town with a supply of Luther's works for sale. 
Thus while the indolent, pleasure-loving Pope 
was taking his ease, and talking of the German 
business as a " squabble among the monks," the 
words of the Reformer were taking root in ten 
thousand hearts, and an army was collecting, made 
up of laymen and ecclesiastics, of scholars and 
artizans, who were prepared to stand by him at 
all hazards. 

The favour of the multitude would The Elector 
have availed Luther but little without Frederic. 
the protection of his Prince ; but happily the 
Elector of Saxony was one who " loved justice, 
and loved his subjects; "and the services rendered 
by him to the cause of the Reformation in its 
earliest stages give him a claim on the gratitude 
of posterity. Under any circumstances, the name 
of Frederic the Wise would have been a memora- 
ble one, as he is one of the few men who have 
refused a splendid throne. Without a crime, and 
without a struggle, he might have been Emperor 
of Germany; for, on the death of Maximilian, 
his talents and character recommended him to 
his brother Electors as the native Prince whom 
they would have preferred to all others. But the 
Turk was threatening Christendom ; on the 

c c 3 



390 LUTHEK. * 

German frontier, if an invasion were really at- 
tempted, the conflict would begin. It was most 
desirable, therefore, to collect resources from 
abroad, which might be directed against the 
common enemy at that point. " Choose the Arch- 
duke Charles," was his advice, " and you will 
add the resources of Spain and Flanders to the 
strength of Germany ; then a barrier will be 
built up against the Infidel, which he will try in 
vain to pass." His counsel was taken ; but all 
men knew what a prize had been within his 
reach, and, in the important deliberations of suc- 
ceeding years, neither the Emperor nor his sub- 
jects could forget that he owed his throne to 
Frederic's magnanimity. When Luther, there- 
fore, wanted friends, the countenance of the Elec- 
tor was of incalculable worth ; but that counte- 
nance was given with much of wariness and re- 
serve. The Reformer never cringed nor flat- 
tered, but admired the noble qualities of his pa- 
tron, and hoped for bolder measures, as more 
light should be given. The Prince sent Luther 
occasional presents and messages of encourage- 
ment, but kept aloof from any personal commu- 
nication, and clung to the hope that the Church 
might be reformed, not in defiance of the Pope 
and ecclesiastical authorities, but with their help 



LUTHEK. 391 

and sanction. Devout in his habits, cautious in 
all his movements, and long accustomed to look 
to Rome as the fountain of light and truth, he 
was slowly weaned from his ancient faith, and 
strongly opposed to any hasty innovation; but 
still his broad shield was over Luther at the most 
critical period of his history. It was well under- 
stood at Rome and elsewhere, that if any violence 
were attempted, it would be repelled by Frederic; 
and his name carried too much weight with it for 
Leo and his ministers to set him at defiance.* 

Better than all God's other gifts Melancthon at 
to Luther, at the time when his Wittemberg. 
service began to. be one of peril, was the friend- 
ship of Melancthon. In the very month in 
which the citation to Rome had reached him, — a 
few weeks before he set out for Augsburg, — a 
young man of twenty-one, whose years seemed 
still fewer, and whose small stature, and timid, 
ungainly address, made him look like an awk- 
ward boy, arrived at Wittemberg, being sent by 
Reuchlin, at the Elector's request, to fill the 
place of Greek Professor in the University. 
Luther, in the first instance, marvelled at the 
choice; but a Latin oration, delivered by Me- 

* See NOTE (F F). 

c c 4 



392 LUTHER. 

lancthon four days afterwards, was received with 
universal astonishment, and proved him at once 
to be entitled to the first place among the Re- 
formed party for scholarship and learning. " We 
presently lost sight of his stature and his person," 
Luther wrote to Spalatin, " and rejoiced in the 
solid substance of worth which was within." The 
Reformer's graphic pen never drew a truer pic- 
ture ; and, through all the remainder of his days, 
that solid substance of worth was his admiration 
and delight. Melancthon drank in Luther's doc- 
trine with eagerness, and was drawn to him by 
that irresistible sympathy which so often binds 
together men of rather opposite natures. Both 
were trained for the special work assigned them 
by Providence, and each supplied what was want- 
ing in the other. Luther was fearless and ener- 
getic in action ; Melancthon was wise and tem- 
perate in counsel. Luther's was the larger and 
stronger faith, — Melancthon's the more endu- 
ring patience. Luther, in his vehement assertion 
of truth, was often not sufficiently tolerant of 
men's prejudices and infirmities; Melancthon, 
from his natural timidity and caution, was in 
danger of yielding too much for peace. Luther, 
by his noble frankness and unfaltering resolution, 
won the sympathy of the crowd; Melancthon, 



LUTHEE. 393 

by his calm wisdom and well-weighed conclusions, 
commended his cause to men of intelligence and 
reflection. They were animated by the same in- 
tense love of truth ; they drew their strength and 
wisdom from the same heavenly spring ; they were 
devoted, heart and soul, to the same noble work. 
Without jealousy or rivalry, they walked, side 
by side, through days of perplexity and days of 
triumph; and when Melancthon, after twenty- 
seven years of familiar intercourse, pronounced a 
funeral oration at Luther's grave, all men knew 
that the world had never seen a nobler or more 
generous friendship. 

On Trinity Sunday, 1518, Luther Progressof 

had addressed the Pope in terms like Luther's 

mind, 
these : — " Prostrate at thy feet, most 

blessed Father, I offer myself with all that I am 

and have. Give me life or death ; call or recal 

me, approve or reprove, as seemeth best to thee ; 

I shall recognize thy voice as the voice of Christ 

speaking in thee ; and if I have deserved death, I 

will not refuse to die." Things, however, could 

not stop at this point. The Reformer little 

thought how soon his convictions would impel 

him onwards, and make implicit submission to 

any human authority impossible. Month after 



394 LUTHER. 

month his thoughts took a wider range, and pene- 
trated more to the heart of things. Christian 
truth, in all its amplitude, was better understood, 
and the Church's departure from it into a hun- 
dred devious paths was more clearly seen. " I 
know not whence these meditations come to me," 
— such was his strain to his friends and corre- 
spondents; " greater things will come to the birth, 
if I write on ; " — " this business is not near its end, 
as my Lords at Rome are dreaming, but is only 
just beginning." These words were verified by 
his noble appeal to the Emperor and Christian 
nobles of Germany, on the Reformation of Reli- 
gion, published in June, 1520, and by 
his celebrated tract on the Babylonish 
Captivity, sent forth in the following October. 
In the first, he speaks of the three walls within 
which the Romans entrenched themselves, as if 
to stand a siege against all comers. The spiritual 
power is independent of temporal jurisdiction, they 
say ; if Scripture be quoted against them, they 
reply that the Pope only can interpret it ; and if a 
Council be threatened, the cry is, But the Pontiff, 
and none else, may convene it. " Now may God 
help us," said this brave leader, " and give us one 
of the trumpets with which the walls of Jericho 
were blown down, that we may, in like manner, 



LUTHER. 395 

blow down these straw and paper walls." God 
did help him ; and the blast was heard through 
Christendom, — clearer, louder, more piercing, than 
any that had preceded it. The address was 
written in the German tongue for German hearts; 
and the rapid sale of four thousand copies showed 
how they responded to its call. The Popes and 
their right royal state, and more than royal 
ambition, — the Cardinals and their wholesale 
plunder of the Church, — the priests and their 
concubines, — the Universities and their neglect 
of Scripture teaching, — Italians swarming in 
German benefices, — the Emperor defied on his 
own soil, — Saints' days turned into seasons of 
revelry, — abuses unchecked, dioceses unvisited, 
flocks untaught, — on all these subjects he wrote 
like a patriot and a Christian ; and peasants and 
mechanics, as well as princes and nobles, thanked 
God that one was found to utter what was hidden 
in so many hearts. 

At length Leo was stirred. Busy The Pope's 
Doctor Eck had found his way to BuU ' 
Rome, and brought back with him a Bull of 
Excommunication. It travelled slowly, but 
reached Wittemberg at last ; and there, on the 
10th of December, Luther publicly burnt it, 
while teachers and students and townsmen stood 



396 LUTHER. 

around him, and marvelled at his boldness. Re- 
treat, of course, from that moment was impos- 
sible ; all negotiation and compromise were at an 
end; the Pope's authority, after years of pain- 
ful doubt and misgiving, was disclaimed; for 
the issue, whatever it might be, Luther's mind 
was made up. The last act may seem to have 
been the result of haste and passion ; and a more 
dignified protest, we may think, would better 
have suited the solemnity of the occasion; but 
the war now was going to be carried from courts 
and convents into a more open arena. To the 
Christian people scattered through Germany the 
Reformer had to make his appeal,— to all who 
hated the tyranny of Rome, and mourned in se- 
cret for the Church's manifold corruptions. From 
them he must look henceforth for help and coun- 
tenance ; and one significant act would tell them, 
better than many treatises, where he stood in re- 
lation to the Pope. Time was precious, as events 
were hastening to a crisis. The books would 
have found their way but slowly to the homes of 
the reading population ; whereas the bonfire of 
Wittemberg was presently town-talk in every 
market-place. 



LUTHEE. 397 

The season was a remarkable one, 

.. . „ „ « •' i T Diet of 

politically as well as religiously. In Worms. 
the previous October, Charles V., the 
newly-elected Emperor, had been crowned at 
Aix-la-Chapelle. In the following January, a 
Diet of the Empire was to be held at Worms. 
The Pope's Nuncio had been importunate with 
Charles to signalize the commencement of his 
reign by extinguishing the new-born heresy, and 
had charged him to proceed against Luther as 
one already convicted and condemned. Charles's 
sense of justice, and his German independence, 
revolted against being thus made a minister of the 
Pope ; but, in his own person, he resolved to 
deal with Luther as a troubler of the Church and 
the empire, and accordingly, on the 24th of March, 
a herald reached Wittemberg, bringing a sum- 
mons and a safe conduct from the Emperor. 
Luther resolved instantly to obey ; 

i i • p • i 5 ttt Luther's 

and his fortnight s progress to Vv orms journey. 
was to him like a march of triumph. pi 

" Labour in my stead," was his parting charge 
to Melancthon ; " if you live, it matters little 
whether I perish." At Leipsic a priest, who 
loved him, significantly held up to him a portrait 
of Savonarola, the Italian martyr, adding the 
seasonable word of encouragement, " Adhere 



398 LUTHER. 

firmly to the truth, and thy God will adhere 
firmly to thee." " They will burn you as they 
did John Huss," said some. " Though they should 
make a fire from Worms to Wittemberg, and 
reaching to the sky, I would pass through it in 
the name of the Lord," was his reply. His way 
lay through Erfurth. Alighting at the door of the 
convent where he once stood with his Plautus 
and his Virgil^ he was welcomed by his friend, 
the Prior, and spent Sunday within the old walls 
where he had worn the yoke of servitude, and 
tasted the sweets of liberty. He was invited to 
preach, and took for his text the words, Peace 
be unto you. And when He had so said, He showed 
unto them his hands and His side. He spoke of 
the Christian's peace, of the power and fruits of 
faith, of the words of blessing which the Ee- 
deemer dispenses from age to age among his true- 
hearted disciples ; but not a word about Worms 
or the Emperor, — no mention of his own trou- 
bles and dangers, — nothing said from which it 
could be inferred that he was anything more than 
a faithful pastor preaching to common hearers the 
word of life. His friends proved tempters by the 
way. Bucer met him with a troop of horse, and 
an offer of protection from a nobleman who had 
embraced the Reformed faith. " His castle is 



LUTHER. 399 

ready for you," was the message ; " the Em- 
peror's confessor will give you a meeting there ; 
his influence with his Sovereign is unbounded; 
be prudent, and all may be settled peaceably." 
" I go where I am called," Luther calmly said ; 
" if the Emperor's confessor has anything to say 
to me, he will find me at Worms." The last 
warning came from Spalatin, who was with the 
Elector at Worms, and heard the common talk in 
all companies that, if Luther came into the net, 
he was lost ; even the Emperor's safe conduct, 
it was said, would be no protection for so daring 
an offender. Luther's journey was almost ended 
when the messenger met him ; already, we may 
suppose, the town was in sight, with its array of 
streets, and the old Cathedral conspicuous among 
the meaner buildings ; for he replied, in words 
which Germany remembers to this day, and will 
never let her children forget : (i Go, tell your 
master that, were there as many devils in Worms 
as there are tiles upon the house-tops, I would 
enter." 



So to Worms he came, and the next 

-n Luther 

day was summoned before the Em- and the 

peror. No grander spectacle had been m peror, 
seen for many centuries. There was the strength 



400 LUTHER. 

of Germany, embodied in the great Electoral 
Princes, the Dukes and Counts of the empire, 
and a hundred barons from their hundred cas- 
tles, — the power of Rome, yet more terrible in 
that age, represented by two Nuncios and thirty 
Bishops, — seven Ambassadors from different 
European Courts, in every one of which the 
Pope had zealous and serviceable allies, — all this 
on one side, — and, on the other, speaking only of 
that which was visible to human eyes, one brave 
monk standing up for a noble cause. Two 

questions were put to him on his first 
April 17. ^ r , , • 

appearance ; — whether he acknow- 
ledged the books condemned by the Pope, and 
whether he stood by what he had written, or re- 
tracted it. " The books are mine," he answered; 
" 1 cannot deny them." For the second ques- 
tion, considering the greatness of the matters in- 
volved, he craved time to answer. It was hoped 
by his enemies that he was wavering ; but he 
wished only to show that his decision was well 
weighed, and his ground deliberately taken. He 
would gain for himself and enemies and friends a 
few hours more to consider what hung upon his 
answer. His request was granted, and the fol- 
lowing day was appointed for his next hearing. 
Expectation grew with each hour's delay. The 



LUTHER. 401 

streets were thronged ; the houses were filled 
with spectators up to the roofs ; a passage was 
made with difficulty for Luther to approach the 
place of meeting. Other business was transacted 
by the Diet while he waited for two hours in the 
crowd. At last, on the memorable 18th of April, 
daylight being gone, and lamps already kindled 
in the great hall of audience, he was brought be- 
fore the same assembly, and had the question of 
the previous day repeated to him. 

" Then Doctor Martin Luther," say the Acts 
of Worms, " replied in the most humble and sub- 
missive manner. He did not raise his voice ; he 
spoke, not with violence, but with candour, meek- 
ness, suitableness and modesty, and yet with 
great joy and Christian firmness." He spoke for 
some time in German, and then was requested by 
the Emperor to repeat what he had said in Latin. 
It was well that Luther, a man of the people by 
birth and in heart, should answer for himself on 
his own soil in his own tongue ; but it was well, 
too, that the protest, which all Christendom was 
to hear, should be spoken in the universal lan- 
guage of scholars and theologians. His writings, 
he said, were manifold; some intended for the 
people on faith and good works ; — some directed 
against the Papacy, in which he had exposed the 

D D 



402 LUTHEE. 

false doctrine, and the scandalous lives, of many 
who bore rule in the Church ; — some addressed 
to individuals who had stepped forth as cham- 
pions of error. The first were useful ; his ene- 
mies had said as much ; they contained good doc- 
trine, in plain, intelligible words, and might be 
read with profit by the unlearned. The second 
were true ; he had said it, and must stand by it, — 
the human laws of the Popes were torturing the 
consciences of the faithful, and their exactions 
were emptying Christendom of its wealth. The 
third were faulty, perhaps, in some respects ; he 
had spoken sometimes with too much heat and 
violence; but in the substance of what he had 
set down he saw nothing to retract. Yet " if I 
have spoken evil" he said, " bear witness of the evil. 
Prove me by the writings of the prophets and 
apostles. When you shall have convinced me of 
my errors in this manner, I will forthwith retract 
them, and be the first to seize my writings, and 
cast them into the flames." 

Such is an outline of Luther's answer. Of 
course, the demand for a retractation was repeated. 
The cause was settled at Rome already, and could 
not be reheard. There was no room for argu- 
ment when the chief authority had given judg- 
ment. " A clear and definite reply is what we 



LUTHER. 403 

want," said the official, speaking for the Council. 
Then came the memorable words which rang 
presently like a trumpet-call through Europe, — 
<e If 1 am not disproved by passages of Scripture, or 
by clear arguments, I neither can nor will retract 
any thing ; for it is not safe for a Christian to speak 
against his conscience." He knew well the import 
of those decisive words. Looking round upon 
the assembly, as if to measure his weakness 
against their strength, he thus gave in his final 
resolve, " Here I am; I can do no other- 
wise; God help me. Amen." 

Luther departed from the Council more like a 
conqueror than a criminal. His temper, at once 
so lofty and so serene, astonished his enemies, and 
gave fresh courage to his friends. His bearing, 
as he stood up with a martyr's self-devotion for 
the truth, was equally removed from unmanly 
weakness and vain self-confidence, while his 
prompt replies gave indication of a mind per- 
fectly self-possessed, and willing to leave the 
issue with Him who disposes alike of men's lives 
and fortunes. The people of Germany rallied 
round him with enthusiasm ; his answers before 
the Diet were repeated and re-echoed on every 
side ; and brave knights were banded together by 
a solemn pledge that with their lives, if it were 

D D 2 



404 LUTHER. 

necessary, they would shield Luther from vio- 
lence. The assemblage at his apartment next day 
was like those which are seen in the palaces of 
monarchs. The Elector Frederic was there, and 
Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, afterwards a distin- 
guished champion of the Reformation, — and 
Duke William of Brunswick, — and others of 
distinguished name. 

For the present, however, no voice but Lu- 
ther's was heard in that great assemblage on the 
side of truth. Charles's will was supreme, and his 
decision was announced as follows : — " Sprung 
from the Christian Emperors of Germany, from 
the Catholic kings of Spain, from the Archdukes 
of Austria, and from the Dukes of Burgundy, 
who all rendered themselves illustrious as de- 
fenders of the Roman faith, I am firmly resolved 
to follow the example of my ancestors. A single 
monk, misled by his own folly, stands up against 
the faith of Christendom. I will sacrifice my 
kingdoms, my power, my friends, my treasures, 
my body, my blood, my life, and my spirit, to 
stop this impiety." After all these high-sounding 
threats, however, the friends of Rome still wished 
for a peaceable settlement. They dreaded pro- 
ceeding to extremities on account of the wide- 
spread and growing sympathy with Luther and 



LUTHER. 405 

his cause, but could not bear the thought of let- 
ting the man who had braved their power depart 
as he came. Some proposed to the Emperor to 
violate his oath, and proceed to judge Luther as 
an obstinate heretic. This counsel Charles re- 
jected indignantly ; and, in fact, by this time, it 
was hardly safe to venture upon such an outrage. 
At last, the middle course was resolved upon of 
plying with remonstrances and entreaties the man 
whom threats could not move. One after ano- 
ther, — men of authority and men of peace, — 
some who desired rest for the distracted Church, 
others who feared for the Reformer's safety, — 
sought him in his home, and begged him to speak 
the single word which would end this unseemly 
strife. But the rock is not more deaf to the 
beating waves than Luther was to entreaties of 
this sort. The Emperor grew impatient; the 
more violent party pressed for judgment; the 
Archbishop of Treves, a man of moderate coun- 
sels, obtained leave to make a last effort to bring 
the Reformer to submission ; but no answer could 
be got beyond what had been given already, that 
he stood by the word of God, u What remedy is 
there," said the Archbishop in their last 
interview, " lor this state of things * 
Point out one yourself." " My Lord," said Lu- 

D D 3 



406 LUTHER. 

ther, after a moment's silence, " I know of none 
but Gamaliel's : If this design is a work of men, it 
will come to nought ; but if it be of God, ye cannot 
overthrow it ; and beware lest haply ye be found to 
fight against God." 

Luther was permitted to depart, 
condemna- and twenty days were allowed him to 
reach Wittemberg. While he was 
yet upon his journey, the final edict of the Diet 
was pronounced ; and terrible did it sound when 
directed against one apparently so defenceless. 
It proscribed his books, his friends, his person. 
After the term of his safe conduct should expire, 
all persons were declared traitors against the Em- 
peror who should lodge Luther, conceal him in 
their houses, give him meat or drink, lend him 
help or countenance, publicly or secretly, by word 
or deed. Railing was added, and truth was out- 
raged, to blacken his reputation. The man Vhom 
all his friends knew to be holy and devout, a dili- 
gent student and expounder of God's word, a 
just and upright citizen, a man of warm and over- 
flowing charity, was denounced as having "stirred 
up revolt, division, war, murder, theft and fire," — 
as one who was " not a man, but Satan himself 
in the form of a man, covered with a monk's 
cowl," — as having " collected into one stinking 



LUTHEK. 407 

pool all the worst heresies of past times, and 

added many of his own." 

At this time, when all Germany Luther's 

was ringing with Luther's name, his journey. 

thoughts ran back to his humble home, and his 

oldest friends, and the well-remembered scenes 

of childhood. He lingered at Eisenach, where he 

once sang in the streets for bread ; and in the old 

church, Dame Cotta, if she were still alive, might 

have listened to the voice which had 

. n May 2 - 

grown in power since it first caught 

her ear, but retained its sweetness still. He 
next turned aside to a little village in which his 
father had been born, and where his grand- 
mother, a poor old peasant, still lived, besides an 
uncle and some other relations. With them he 
spent a tranquil day, and then resumed his jour- 
ney, accompanied by his brother and a friend. 
In a lonely part of the road, five horsemen, 
masked and armed from head to foot, suddenly 
rushed upon the travellers, seized Luther, placed 
him on a led horse, and carried him off at a rapid 
pace, preserving all the while a mysterious silence. 
In the dead of the night they reached a lonely 
fortress, situated at the summit of a steep moun- 
tain. The heavy doors were unbarred, and the 
prisoner conducted to an inner room, where he 

D D 4 



408 LUTHEK. 

found a military dress and a knight's sword. He 
was speedily stripped of his ecclesiastical habits, 
and told by those who thus strangely busied them- 
selves about him, that he was no longer Doctor 
Martin, but Knight George. By this name the 
attendants were to know him, and he was never 
to be seen abroad but in the costume suited to 
his assumed character. 

All this would be like a dream at 

A prisoner 

at the first ; but by degrees the truth came 

out. His friends, thinking him a 
doomed man if he should wander abroad after 
the publication of the Imperial sentence, con- 
trived this mode of securing his safety. Only a 
little handful were in the secret ; the place of re- 
treat was admirably chosen ; the greatest pains 
had been taken to prevent the track of his cap- 
tors from being discovered; there was little pro- 
bability of chance travellers finding their way to 
a gloomy old castle, called the Wartburg, situated 
in the deep, black forests of Thuringia ; and there, 
under the protection of the Elector of Saxony, 
it pleased God to shelter his servant, till the 
tempest, which raged against him, should have 
spent some of its violence. 

Luther's retreat in this mountain solitude was 
an important period in his history. After the 



LUTHER. 409 

events of Worms, he had to reconsider his posi- 
tion, to collect his strength, to sink into the 
depths of his own heart, and enquire how he 
stood prepared for the future whatever it might 
be, — above all, to commune much with God, and 
get from the heavenly treasury, not only the 
spirit of power with which he was largely en- 
dued already, but also that soundness of mind, 
and clearness and strength of judgment, which 
were, if possible, yet more necessary for the 
coming conflict. He complains occasionally that 
his times of solitude are times of idleness. In 
reality, however, he was never better employed. 
An eager spirit like his wanted retirement and 
repose. To be for ever in the fray would bring 
out too prominently the harder and rougher por- 
tions of his character. So much was committed 
to him, — he was the principal arbiter in transac- 
tions of such mighty consequence, — wisdom was 
so necessary to guide him in his onward path, and 
mistakes might be so fatal, — that to be permitted 
for months together to commune closely with the 
Father of his spirit, without disturbance from 
enemies or friends, was a blessing beyond all 
price, the kindest dispensation perhaps in his 
eventful and guarded life. He wrote to his friends, 
and dated From the Wilderness, — From the 



410 LTJTHEK. 

Island of Patmos, — From the region of the 
clouds, — From amidst the birds singing sweetly 
on the branches, and lauding God day and night 
with all their strength. These expressions are 
most significant ; and as it is the privilege of 
genius to convey a world of meaning sometimes by 
a single word, we seem to look into the very 
heart of the man who could thus vividly describe 
the place of his banishment. If he dwelt in the 
clouds, it was far away from the scenes of human 
strife and passion. The wilderness was to him, 
as to his Lord, a place of temptation ; but angels 
came and ministered to him likewise. The birds 
were not the only songsters ; for Luther's heart, 
when at the fullest, overflowed at his lips, and 
hymns of praise were sung to tunes of his own or 
others' composing. His Patmos was no prison, 
but a place of rest and liberty, where visions, 
like those of the beloved disciple, greeted his 
eyes, and the glories of the New Jerusalem, 
adorned as a bride for her husband, contrasted 
brightly and pleasantly with the sad looks and 
torn garments of the distracted Church on earth. 

Occupations Luther had feW b °° ks with Mm at 

in his the Wartburg ; but among them were 

solitude. . 

the Greek and Hebrew scriptures ; 

and these he studied diligently both for his own 



LUTHEK. 411 

spiritual improvement and for the lasting gain of 
his countrymen. He had already commenced 
his German translation ; and while enemies were 
hoping he was dead, and friends wondered at not 
hearing his living voice in the midst of them, he 
was busy with the work which has enriched mil- 
lions of his countrymen during the last three cen- 
turies. Other works, too, of a controversial or 
practical kind, were poured out from his moun- 
tain retreat, — a translation of Melancthorfs Latin 
Apology for the Reformation, — a German Com- 
mentary upon the Epistles and Gospels for the 
Year, — treatises on Confession, on Antichrist, on 
Monastic Vows. The last subject was much in 
his thoughts, and perplexed him greatly. His 
honesty made him unwilling to tamper with 
obligations of any kind. On the other hand, the 
more he thought on the subject, and the more he 
saw of the practical evils connected with it, the 
stronger was his conviction that forced celibacy 
was a snare for men's souls. At first, with a pru- 
dence which showed how little disposed he was 
to push things to extremes, he advised persons 
who were still young, and repented of their en- 
gagements to the Church, to feel themselves free 
to cancel them ; but he " did not dare," to use 
his own words, to give the same advice to persons 



412 LUTHER. 

advanced in life, who had ratified the contract of 
their youth by the approval of their riper judg- 
ment. On no subject does his mind seem to have 
wavered so much. Subsequent reflection or 
temptation, we know, made him bold enough to do 
what now he had not the courage to recommend ; 
but to many his earlier judgment will seem the 
better ; and too flippant for so grave a question was 
the saying of a later day, that it " was a duty," not 
a sin, " to marry, were it only to spite the Pope." 

Enquiries While Luther was confined, Ger- 

after many was not unmoved. His noble 

Luther. .^ 

stand at Worms had made him dearer 
than ever to the hearts of his* countrymen, and 
had done more to recommend his doctrine than 
many months of writing and preaching. His dis- 
appearance was the subject of conversation in 
towns and villages. Travellers found groups as- 
sembled in the market-places, and the question 
which greeted them was not, " What of the court, 
or the camp?" but " What of Luther? where 
is he, and by whom concealed? by friends or 
foes ? " Sometimes the worst was reported, and 
the place and manner of his death were set forth 
by some deceived or deceitful wayfarer ; and then 
cries of grief were heard, and threats of ven- 



LUTHER. 413 

geance were muttered. The partizans of Rome 
began to tremble at the indications of popular 
resentment which met them on every side. They 
had hoped, shortly before, that the Reformer had 
really been taken off, and would trouble them 
no more ; now they would have given gold to 
redeem his life. " The only means of safety 
now left to us," wrote one of them to the Arch- 
bishop of Mentz, " is to kindle torches and make 
a search for Luther over the whole world, in 
order to restore him to the wishes of the nation." 
The work, however, did not stand progress of 
still in the absence of him who had Reformation. 
guided and controlled it hitherto. It is strange 
that up to this time, even in places which were 
thoroughly imbued with the Reformed doctrine, 
no change had been made in the religious obser- 
vances of the people. Mass was celebrated as 
before ; the host was lifted up and worshipped ; 
Latin was the language of the sanctuary; pil- 
grimages were made to favourite shrines; and 
images of the Virgin and favourite saints were 
decked out with votive offerings. The first steps 
in advance were taken, not by Luther's autho- 
rity, but in spite of his wishes. He anticipated 
large results from the silent, powerful opera- 
tion of the truth on men's consciences. As the 



414 LUTHEK. 

new doctrine should possess their hearts, the old 
usages, he expected, would fall away and disap- 
pear, and the work of reformation might prove 
all the surer if it were not too much precipitated. 
But the men who had succeeded to his place at 
Wittemberg were for prompter and more decisive 
measures. On Christmas-day, 1521, the old 
Church, in which Luther's spirit-stirring tones 
had been heard so often, witnessed a stranger and 
more novel spectacle than any which had pre- 
ceded it. A little company of faithful men as- 
sembled there, and received the communion in 
both kinds at the hands of the ministering priest. 
It was no mass, but the supper of the Lord. 
There was no bowing down to the uplifted host, — 
none of the trickery which had surrounded that 
most touching memorial of the Redeemer's love 
with mysterious awe. All was simply done. The 
consecrating words were spoken in good honest 
German. The invited guests were all who " felt 
the burden of sin, and hungered and thirsted for 
divine grace." Some were found to receive gladly 
on these terms the offered bread and wine ; and in 
the following month the Town Council and Uni- 
versity gave their formal approval to the new 
mode of celebration by appointing a suitable ser- 
vice. About the same time the question of vows 



LUTHER. 415 

was being practically settled in the same place. 
Thirteen monks at once left the convent of the 
Augustines, and betook themselves, in a common 
garb, to the callings for which they were most 
fitted ; and the chapter of the monastery, when 
summoned to give judgment in the matter, de- 
clared that " in Christ there was neither monk 
nor lay person ; " all were free to quit the houses 
in which they could not abide safely or comfort- 
ably; all who chose to abide under the yoke 
might remain, and obey their superiors, not by 
constraint, but in love. 

Thus the leaven was working si- Outbreak of 
lently and surely where Luther had fanaticism, 
first hidden it ; but in all times of reformation, 
when ancient usages are attacked, and first prin- 
ciples are discussed with freedom, fanaticism is 
sure to start up, with its wild theories, and rash 
counsels, and boundless self-sufficiency. Luther 
had appealed from the Church to the word ; now 
a new school of Prophets, as they called them- 
selves, began to appeal from the word to the 
Spirit. " You quote a book," they said ; " a 
living voice has spoken to us. We want no 
human guides. We go where the Holy Ghost 
shall call us, like the saints in ancient days." 



416 LUTHER. 

From Zwickau, a neighbouring town, the infec- 
tion soon spread to Wittemberg. Melancthon, 
timid and cautious as usual, would pronounce no 
positive opinion. Some, who rejected the new 
revelation, were yet hurried by the temper which 
it kindled into extreme opinions and rash mea- 
sures. Carlstadt, a man whose influence with 
the people was second only to Luther's, led the 
way, and the effects of his preaching were soon 
seen in violence and tumult. Churches were in- 
vaded, and images broken in pieces. Schools 
were broken up, and students of divinity sent 
back to the plough. Learning was proclaimed to 
be an useless incumbrance, and the only theology 
worth having was held to be that which God 
taught his own children by immediate revelation. 
Every thing was unsettled. The good were per- 
plexed ; the timid began to waver ; the enemies 
of the Reformation and the friends of Rome began 
to exult and triumph. 

Voice from Luther heard of all that was pass- 

the Wartburg. ^ an( j tr ; e( j to c heck it by letters 
of remonstrance. He was willing to bear with 
images and masses while the work of inward 
illumination was going on, and trusted that the 
sanctuary would be cleansed when men's hearts 
were first made temples of the Holy Ghost. To 



LUTHER. 417 

carry on the work of Reformation by popular 
tumult and violence seemed to him both impo- 
litic and profane. Rash and hasty innovators 
he always regarded, not as friends, but as enemies 
who hindered and disgraced the cause which was 
dearer to him than life. The inhabitants of Wit- 
temberg, he said, were " his own brood ; God had 
entrusted them to him ; he would not shrink from 
death, if he could do them good." Yet, when it 
was reported to him that their town had been the 
scene of disorder, he wrote to rebuke 

, ' _-. Dec. 1521. 

them sharply. " You are directing 

your energies," he says, (e against the mass, and 
images, and other unimportant matters ; and, in 
doing so, you are losing sight of faith and charity. 
Your outrageous conduct has afflicted many pious 
men, — men better, perhaps, than yourselves. 
You have forgotten what is due to the weak. ... 
God granted you a great blessing in giving you 
His pure and undefiled word. Yet I see you 
not a whit the more charitable for it. You ex- 
tend no helping hand to those who have never 
heard the word, — to our brothers and sisters at 
Leipsic, at Meissen, and many other places, for 
whose salvation we are bound to care, as for our 
own. You have rushed into your present pro- 
ceedings, ej es shut, head down, like a bull, look- 

E E 



418 LTJTHEK. 

ing neither to the left nor to the right. Reckon 
no longer upon me; I cast you off; I abjure 

you." 

Departure for The evil, however, went on, and 
Witteinberg. aU eyeg were turne d t the Wart- 

burg. Citizens and Professors, — the men who 
were guilty of excesses, and the men who de- 
plored them, — wanted a guiding hand, and a 
voice of authority. Even the prophets and 
image-breakers appealed to Luther, and promised 
to abide by his decision. Under these circum- 
stances, he could remain no longer in his hiding- 
place. Danger was abroad, for Duke George, 
and other enemies of the Reformation, were laying 
all that was done by the fanatics to his account, 
and calling on the Elector to take summary mea- 
sures against the leader and all his followers. But 
"Wittemberg was the post of duty, and thither he 
would go at all hazards. He left the 
Wartburg on Monday the 3rd of 
March, after ten months of seclusion, and on the 
following Friday was again among his friends. 
He wrote to the Elector on his journey, not to 
claim his protection, but rather to repudiate all 
help but that which God might give. "In all 
that concerns me," he says, " you must act as an 
Electoral Prince. The orders of the Emperor 



LUTHER. 419 

must have free course in your towns and villages. 
Leave your gates open, if any shall come in search 
of me. No sword can give any help in this cause, 
God must do it all." 

On the Sunday after his arrival, Sermons on 
the old church was filled from end to ]Deace - 
end, and Luther mounted the pulpit from which 
he had spoken so often like a father to his chil- 
dren. His .topics were patience and charity and 
trust in God to carry on his own work. " Let 
nothing be done upon compulsion," he said; — 
" The word of God must conquer men's hearts, 
and no other victory was worth having, as faith 
and sincerity would be wanting. . . . Their zeal 
should be like St. Paul's, whose spirit was stirred 
within him when he saw Athens given to ido- 
latry ; yet he laid no hand on any of its altars; 
only preached to them the living God. . . . Their 
faith should be clear and direct as the sun's pe- 
netrating light ; no king can stop his rays or 
divert their course ; but their love, too, should be 
as diffusive as the sun's heat, radiating in all di- 
rections, and meeting in turn the wants of every 
brother." Such was the burden of Luther's ex- 
hortations. Seven times in eight following days 
he preached in this strain ; and his triumph was 
complete. The people were recalled to sobriety 



420 LUTHER. 

and moderation; extravagant teachers fell back 
into obscurity ; timid and anxious' spirits were 
relieved from perplexing doubts; peace was given 
back to the distracted flock. Luther at Worms 
was not greater or nobler than Luther thus de- 
scending from his mountain solitude, going 
straight to the pulpit as his throne of judgment, 
and thence, by calm remonstrance and faithful 
appeals to God's word, quelling the excited spirits 
which had sown confusion and strife among his 
beloved flock. 

Up to this point our narrative has been full 
and particular. The history of the Reformation, 
at its earliest period, is the history of Luther's 
own progress in the discovery of truth, and every 
step in his advancing career is full of the deepest 
interest. The formation of his character, the 
growth of his opinions, the discipline by which he 
was prepared for his great work, the events which 
called him from his monk's cell, and his Professor's 
chair, to be the foremost champion of men's 
dearest rights, and the leader in that moral revo- 
lution which gave back the pure gospel to a large 
portion of Christendom, — all this could not be 
told without some minuteness of detail ; and time 
and patience may well be spared for studying the 



LUTHER. 421 

most important chapter in the Annals of the 
Church since the Apostolic Age. But from this 
point we must content ourselves with describing 
characteristic incidents, or marked eras, in the 
Eeformer's life, leaving our readers to fill up our 
imperfect outline from the ample materials fur- 
nished by Kanke, D'Aubigne, Waddington, Mil- 
ner, Michelet and others. 

From the Wartburg Luther had 

° . Translation 

brought with him the best fruit of his of the New 
solitude, his unfinished translation of 
the New Testament, and now, with the help of 
Melancthon, he set himself to complete and per- 
fect it. In six months it was ready for the press. 
The printers hastened the work as if they felt how 
much depended on it, and before the end of Sep- 
tember three thousand copies of the word went 
forth, bearing this simple but expressive title, 
The New Testament : German : Wittemberg. No 
human name was given ; but all men knew what 
hand had unsealed the sacred fountain. The 
style, like that of our own version, was the best 
that the literature of his country had yet pro- 
duced, — popular without being too homely, — such 
as the scholar might approve, and the peasant un- 
derstand. It was rapidly carried over Germany ; 

E E 3 



422 LUTHER. 

edicts of princes could not stop its march. Men 
would have for themselves what had been the 
priest's peculiar treasure too long ; and in twelve 
years sixty editions, nearly, of this precious 
volume had gone forth, scattering light, infusing 
strength, dispensing comfort, in ten thousand 
homes. A new era commenced for Germany, and 
men who had been taught to revere the Pope, and 
to regard Luther as a blaspheming heretic, could 
now weigh the doctrine of both in the balance of 
truth. " Common people, women, cobblers even," 
said the enemies of the Reformation, " are now 
devouring this book of Luther's ;" and the charge 
was true. Men were learning their duties as 
Christians, — were listening to the message of 
salvation, — were studying page after page of the 
Holy Book, — eagerly, joyfully, by their own 
hearths, among their children and familiar friends, 
and mingled their thanksgivings to God with 
blessings on their noble countryman to whom they 
owed this new-found treasure. 

While these things were doing, and Luther, 
unguarded by any human power, was busily en- 
gaged in doing God's work, the Decree of Worms 
remained an empty threat. The Emperor, who 
ruled in Austria and Hungary and Spain and 
Flanders and the Indies, did not live more securely 



LUTHEK. 423 

in any one of his walled castles or guarded palaces 
than Luther in his humble dwelling at Wittem- 
berg. Another Diet assembled at M522, 

Nuremberg, sat for a year, parted and \ 1523 - 

came together again. Two new Popes, in suc- 
cession, thundered their anathemas against Lu- 
ther, and called upon the Princes of Germany to 
rid the world of this troubler of its peace ; but all 
in vain. The powers of this world were kept in 
check by Him who rules them all. National jea- 
lousies, — court intrigues, — the feuds of the Em- 
pire at one time, — changes in the Vatican at 
another, — all wrought for one common end, and 
made a wall of brass around the hated Reformer, 
within which he lifted up his voice like a trumpet, 
and spoke those thrilling words which were calling 
up whole nations to life. 

The war of the peasants made a 

• • • -r 1 7 tp -. • -. War of the 

great crisis in Luther s life, and, inde- peasants. 
pendently of its political interest, had 
a prejudicial bearing, undoubtedly, on the cause 
of the Reformation. In the year 1524, a large 
portion of Germany was agitated by a general 
rising of the serfs, or rural bondservants, against 
their lords. The feeling which was abroad greatly 
resembled that which flamed out in England at 

E E 4 



424 LUTHER. 

the time of Wat Tyler's insurrection. The people 
were outgrowing the restraints imposed upon 
them by the feudal system ; the yoke, which had 
been patiently borne for ages, became an intoler- 
able burden ; and, in the absence of free institu- 
tions to check the ruling powers, and give a safe 
direction to the popular element, threats and vio- 
lence became their natural weapons. Then came 
the gathering of armed multitudes, the storming 
of castles, the plundering of cities, and all the 
excesses in which long-suppressed resentment is 
sure to vent itself, when the weak suddenly find 
themselves irresistibly strong, and the oppressor is 
driven to sue for mercy at the hands of those who 
were his drudges yesterday. The flame spread 
rapidly from one province to another of the great 
German Empire. It began near the Black Fo- 
rest; it ran quickly through Suabia, spread to 
Saxony, startled the nobles of Thuringia and 
Franconia, and reached the countries bordering 
on the Rhine. The demands of the insurgents were 
at last embodied in twelve articles, — some relating 
to oppressive forest laws, — some complaining of 
newly-imposed burdens in the way of taxation, — 
some claiming to be equal to their Lords, as being 
redeemed by the bloocl of the Son of God, and 
especially asserting their right to choose their own 



LUTHER. 425 

pastors. Their cause very soon became despe- 
rate; for it was discredited by massacre and 
pillage ; their leaders were ignorant or intempe- 
rate men who had no means of access to the ruling 
powers; and their numbers, amounting at one 
time to forty thousand men rudely armed, made 
negotiation difficult and dangerous. Knowing the 
generosity of Luther's nature, and assured that 
all his sympathies would be on the side of justice, 
they appealed to him by name. " Let him arbi- 
trate between us and our lords," they said : " by 
the word of God we will be tried ; and if we mis- 
take concerning it, he can put us right." 

Nothing could be more embarrass- Luther called 
ing to the Keformer than such a tri- t0 mediate - 
bute to his greatness. The cry resounded through 
Germany that for all this harvest of misery and 
crime his doctrine was responsible. He had taught 
the people to appeal to reason and Scripture against 
their priests, it was said ; and now they were but 
fighting with weapons of his forging, — using for 
their own wicked purposes the arguments which 
his books and sermons had made popular wherever 
men chafed under the yoke of authority, or 
longed for licence and plunder. Luther's answer, 
in the first instance, was worthy of himself. Like 
a heaven-commissioned prophet he would have 



426 LUTHER. 

mediated between the nobles who had abused their 
power, and the peasants who had confounded li- 
berty with anarchy. " You are the cause of this 
revolt," he said plainly, addressing the Princes 
and Bishops of the empire ; " it is not the pea- 
sants, dear lords, who rise up against you, but it 
is God himself who wishes to oppose your fury. 
For the love of God, lay aside your indignation. 
Treat this poor people with discretion as you 
would persons drunk and bewildered. Suppress 
these commotions by gentleness, lest a conflagra- 
tion break forth and set all Germany in a blaze." 
To the people he spoke as one sympathizing with 
their wrongs, yet bound to rebuke their sin. To 
revolt, he told them, was to act like Pagans ; 
the duty of Christians was patience, not war. — 
" The Pope and Emperor have been banded toge- 
ther against me, yet the more they stormed, the 
more the gospel has advanced and triumphed. 
And why ? because I have committed all to God, 
and awaited his strong hand. It is not with the 
sword that Christians fight ; but with suffering 
and the cross. Christ, their Captain, did not 
handle the sword ; He hung upon the tree." To 
both parties, in a spirit of impartial faithfulness, 
he recommended compromise and mutual conces- 
sions. He spared none; he rebuked and coun- 



LUTHER. 427 

selled all. " You, lords," lie said in conclusion, 
" have Scripture and history against you, which 
teach you the punishment which has ever followed 
tyranny. You, peasants, have Scripture and ex- 
perience against you ; for revolt has never ended 
well, and God has sternly fulfilled the saying of 
His own word, c They that take the sword shall 
perish with the sword.' " 

The storm was too violent to be appeased by 
words like these. Fanaticism of the wildest kind 
mingled in the fray. An enthusiast of the name 
of Munzer assumed the tone of a prophet, and 
was received in that character by the ignorant 
multitude who flocked to his standard. Dreams 
were taken as commands from heaven. The wars 
of Canaan were to be repeated ; for the earth was 
given to the saints, and the unbelieving of every 
name were aliens and intruders. Under these 
circumstances, to try to make peace was like 
preaching to the winds. Men of all ranks com- 
bined for the common safety, and, after many 
months of conflict in a widely-ex- 

J A. D. 1525. 

tended field, the insurgents were put 

down; but fifty thousand Germans had, first, 

perished with the sword. 

Luther mourned in bitterness and Luther's grief 
anguish of spirit for the afflictions of ^passion. 



428 LUTHER. 

his country. He had become odious to the pea- 
sants for his efforts to restrain their madness ; and 
now, because his name had been quoted and his 
doctrine perverted by ignorant or wicked men, 
the Romish party charged him as the originator 
of these fearful evils. The cause, which was 
dearer to him than life, had its triumphs suddenly 
arrested. Timid men shrank from innovations 
which might break down old barriers, and let in 
a flood of unimagined horrors. He was naturally 
a man of large compassion and overflowing cha- 
rity ; but this load of suffering and obloquy for a 
time completely overmastered him. Letters were 
written in a tone of almost savage fierceness. The 
Reformer and man of God seemed to be possessed 
with the crusading spirit ; and misguided peasants, 
smarting under a sense of wrong, were talked of 
as " accursed infidels " had been in other days. 
He was tempted beyond his strength, and, in the 
bitterness of his sorrow, forgot his own oft-re- 
peated lesson that God must work, and man must 
suffer and wait and pray. 

Luther's At such a time, Luther's tossed and 

marriage. anxious spirit naturally craved a place 
of refuge; and he found it in a home of peace 
and love. On the 14th of June, 1525, he married 



LUTHEK. 429 

Catherine Bora, a lady of noble birth, of great 
beauty, and of piety like his own. She had been 
a nun, but fled from confinement some time before 
with eight of her companions, and, not knowing 
where else to go for shelter or counsel, had stopped 
at the door of Luther's convent. The certainty of 
provoking a sneer at his own expense did not 
deter him from doing the work of charity ; and after 
their parents or nearest relatives had refused to re- 
ceive them, he took them, like orphans, under his 
charge, lodged them in the families of his friends, 
and provided suitable marriages for the younger 
among them. " I grieve for the poor things 
from my heart," he had written to Spalatin ; 
" yet more, I abominate the cruelty of those who 
thus insulate the weaker sex, and divorce so many 
from those whom God intends for their guardians 
and protectors. And what can I do with them, 
you ask. Why, if their relations will not protect 
them, I must get others to take them in; and 
some have promised to do so already. Pray beg 
some money for me of your rich courtier friends, 
to enable me to keep them for a week or a fort- 
night Entreat the Elector to give us ten 

florins, and some dresses new or old, for these 
poor girls." For two years after his acquaintance 
with Catherine, Luther certainly had no thoughts 



430 LUTHER. 

of changing his state. He had even proposed mar- 
riage to the lady in other quarters, — had pressed 
it upon her unduly ; so that she complained of 
him to a common friend, and said frankly, at the 
same time, that, if Luther himself should seek 
her, she was willing to wed, but she must use her 
woman's privilege of declining to give her hand 
where her heart would not go with it. At the 
same time, a rumour having gone abroad that 
Luther was meditating marriage, one of his friends, 
a lawyer, had said that, " if the monk should wed 
the nun, the world and the devil would have their 
fill of laughter, and all that he had accomplished 
in the world for good would be undone at a 
stroke." Both sayings, it seems, — Catherine's and 
the lawyer's, — were reported to Luther ; and the 
two combined seem to have precipitated a reso- 
lution which, undoubtedly, caused much sorrow 
to many of his best friends, and raised shouts of 
exultation wherever his name was odious. He 
would " play the devil and the world a trick," he 
said. He would show that the work was heaven's, 
and not his ; and if men, in their blindness, should 
denounce him as vile for an action which his own 
conscience told him was lawful, then it would be 
seen that " the Reformation stood not by the 
weakness of men but by the power of God." 



LUTHEK. 431 

A tone of levity was certainly out of place at 
such a time ; for the question of marrying, or 
respecting his vow of celibacy, was a very solemn 
one, in Luther's case, and should have been set- 
tled after anxious and prayerful deliberation. 
More gravely he wrote at other times, — " I wish 
to bear testimony to the Gospel, not only by my 
words but by my works ; " — "I wish to preserve 
no part of my Papistical life;" — " For the edifica- 
tion of the weak, I mean to leave a striking con- 
firmation of what I have taught, perceiving that 
my end is near." And, doubtless, when the step 
was taken, he had a clear conviction that, in his 
place, it became him to justify what he had writ- 
ten, and to proclaim, in the most emphatic man- 
ner, that marriage was God's ordinance, and that 
forced celibacy was man's wicked invention. 
He had done violence to his nature, moreover, 
when he became a recluse ; he had a generous, 
almost chivalrous, regard for all that was noble 
and pure in womanhood, and was formed for the 
delights of familiar companionship. Still we can- 
not help wishing that in this respect, as in so many 
others, the Reformer had been like St. Paul. The 
mockers and the scoffers of his day, and of later 
days, who have made themselves merry at his ex- 
pense, we heed but little. That Luther thought of 



432 LUTHEK. 

marriage when he took the first steps toward a se- 
paration from Rome, is as ridiculous a calumny as 
any that the advocates of the Papacy ever forged 
and propagated. But his noble cause was da- 
maged by this act: all that he wrote on one 
most important subject was received with jea- 
lousy and suspicion ever afterwards ; and his 
spotless name received its first stain in the eyes 
of many who wished him well. 
His domestic Melancthon, who knew Luther in 
character. his happy home, approved his mar- 
riage ; and, truly, when we see how his spirit was 
soothed, and his life gladdened, by Catherine's 
gentle presence, it is more difficult for us to con- 
demn it. In sober earnestness, or in his jesting 
moods, he called her sometimes his Empress, at 
other times, Lord Kate; but to his friends he 
wrote about her as " kind to him in all things," — 
6S far beyond his hopes ; " and his bonds, if any, 
were those of generous confiding love. Children 
grew up around him ; and their simple ways, and 
pleasant sports, and trusting nature, afforded him 
a new field of observation, from which he drew 
many a lesson of heavenly wisdom. Earth and 
air and sky all teemed with images which his fancy 
was for ever weaving into fables and parables; 
and now his little ones supplied the place of birds 



LUTHEE. 433 

and fruits and flowers. His comments, often, on 
what he saw among them are profoundly wise and 
touchingly beautiful, "Serve the Lord with fear, 
and rejoice with trembling. There is no contra- 
diction in this text, at least to me," he writes. 
" My little boy, John, does exactly thus with me. 
But, alas ! I fail towards God. If I am seated at 
table, and am writing or doing anything, John 
sings me a little song. If he sings too loud, and 
I tell him of it, he still sings on, but with some 
fear, and to himself, as it were. God wills that 
we also should be constantly gay, but that our 
gaiety be tempered with fear and reserve." To 
the same John he wrote during the sitting of the 
Diet at Augsburg ; and the letter contains a pa- 
rable in which we read of a beautiful garden, and 
pretty horses for good children, with golden bri- 
dles and silver saddles.* He had a father's trou- 
bles, as well as a father's pleasures ; for two of his 
daughters went before him to the grave, and the 
name of his darling Magdalene, his all-dutiful, 
all-obedient child, is inscribed in the records 
which will never die. " There thou art ; peace be 
with thee," he said, as she was put into her coffin, 
" Dear child, thou wilt rise again ; thou wilt 
shine like a star, aye, like the sun. I am joyful 

* See NOTE (GG). 
F F 



434 LUTHER. 

in spirit ; but, oh ! how sad in the flesh ! " Then, 
writing to a friend, he says, " We ought to be 
glad, I know, for her happy eseape from the 
power of the flesh, — from world, and Turk, and 
devil ; yet have we constant weeping and bitter 
sorrow. At the bottom of my soul are engraven 
her looks, her words, her gestures. Even the 
death of Christ (and what are all deaths in com- 
parison with that?) cannot tear me from this 
thought as it ought to do." 

As we have been looking into Luther's 

Poverty 

and disin- home, we may just observe that it ac- 
terestedness. CQrded ratJier w J t J 1 t ^ e obscurity of his 

origin than with the greatness of his fame. He 
never fared so well, probably, as when he lived at 
the Elector's charges in the Wartburg. Whatever 
allowances he had were consumed in a generous 
hospitality, and in gifts which left him, some- 
times, almost as needy as those to whom they 
were sent. "I shall have to quit Wittemberg, 
and make it up with the Pope and the Emperor," 
he writes jokingly at one time; "for Staupitz 
sends us no money, and we are getting deeper into 
debt." " You ask me for eight florins " (less than 
a pound), he writes at a later period ; " where on 
earth am I to get eight florins ? My poor house 
is drained of its last penny. I have been obliged 



LUTHER. 435 

to pawn three goblets, and they were presents 
from different people." Yet in the same year we 
find him writing about a plague at Wittemberg, 
and describing his house as " a regular hospital." 
Two friends had fallen ill there, and were nursed 
like sisters. Then the wife of the chaplain died, and 
as <c every body seemed afraid of the poor fellow, 
we took him and his children into our house," says 
Luther. All this was a drain upon his scanty re- 
sources, his allowance from the Elector amounting 
only to two hundred florins; and more than 
once we find him turning his thoughts to some 
handicraft occupation for a living. He writes for 
turning tools, — says he has made some progress in 
clock-making, — announces, too, that he has laid 
out a garden, and that his " melons, gourds, and 
pumpkins get on famously." Yet when the book- 
sellers offered him an annual stipend for all he 
should write, he would not take it ; what God 
had enabled him to send forth to instruct man- 
kind he declared should be a free gift to them, like 
the light of heaven. Quite of a piece with this 
noble disinterestness were all his dealings with 
the Elector. Gifts were not absolutely declined, 
but he did his best to have them sparingly be- 
stowed. " I have long delayed to thank you for 
the clothes and gown," he writes at one time; 

F F 2 



436 LUTHER. 

" but I humbly beg your Grace not to believe 
those who say that I am in want. As a minister, 
it does not behove me to have any superfluity, 
nor do I desire it. . . . It would not become me 
to wear the liver-coloured cloth; yet, the black 
coat I will wear in honour of your Grace, though 
it is much too costly for me; and, were it not 
your Grace's gift, I could never wear such a coat 
I beg, therefore, that your Grace will wait till I 
myself complain and ask, so that, through this 
over-readiness on your Grace's part, I may not 
be shamed out of asking for others who are much 
worthier of such favours." Yet, mark how gene- 
rously the man can give, who is so backward to re- 
ceive. One of his letters respecting home matters 
runs thus : — " We must dismiss old John with 
honour. "We know that he has always served us 
faithfully and zealously, and as became a Christian 
servant. . . . You need not remind me that we 
are not rich. I would gladly give him ten florins 
if I had them ; but do not let it be less than Jive. 
He is not able to do much for himself. Pray 
help him in any other way that you can. There 
is a silver cup which might be pawned. Sure I 
am that God will not desert us." 

Luther's con- We must turn to a less inviting 
troversies. subject, that of Luther's controversies. 



LUTHER. 437 

Little need be said about bis royal antagonist. 

Considering wbat Henry the Eighth's morals 

were, bis opinion of the Seven Sacraments can 

signify but little to Christendom, and Luther 

might well have contented himself with his first 

comment on the work which was lauded at court, 

and puffed at Rome, — ce A great boast, I hear, is 

made of a little book by the King of England." But 

the praise which was lavished on it by others roused 

the indignation of Luther, and he spent some good 

argument, and much foul language, on one whom 

flatterers classed with Augustine, Constantine, 

and Charlemagne, but whose championship of the 

Church appears simply ludicrous to all who are 

acquainted with his career of crime. 

Worthier combatants succeeded ; — 

Erasmus. 
first, the greatest scholar of his age, — 

Erasmus. He was too conspicuous a man to be 
entirely neutral in a contest which agitated Eu- 
rope from end to end, and, as he held much in 
common with the conflicting parties, was ap- 
pealed to by both in turn. Peace was dearer to 
him than truth, — life more precious in his eyes 
than either. " All men have not firmness enough 
for martyrdom ; " — " With me the authority of the 
Church has so much weight, that I could be of the 
same opinion with Arians and Pelagians, had 



438 LUTHER. 

the Church signified its approbation of their 
doctrines;" — " If Pope or Emperor decree 
right, I follow what is holy ; if wrong, I endure 
what is safe ; " — " Above all, avoid dissension, — 
a thing destructive of every good, — and be care- 
ful to serve the times with a sort of holy craft ; 
yet in such manner as not to betray the treasure 
of evangelical truth." In these sentences we read 
the heart of Erasmus, and for such a man to make 
common cause with Luther was as impossible as 
for the hunted hare to turn, with a lion's heart* 
on its pursuers. For a time they were on terms 
of distant civility; they corresponded occa- 
sionally; each admired the genius of the other, 
and commended what had been well done to- 
wards their common object. But their paths 
soon diverged ; the Eeformer was pledged to the 
service of truth, — the scholar to his own safety, 
and the cause of peace. Two Popes in succes- 
sion, Adrian VI. and Clement VII., made suit 
to Erasmus, and begged his help ; Henry VIII. 
solicited him to become a brother-champion of 
the ancient faith ; till at last his natural unwil- 
lingness was overcome, and, in the sight of all 
Christendom, he entered the lists against the man 
of Wittemberg. 

Luther probably had heard some rumour that 



LUTHER. 439 

Erasmus was girding himself for the battle. He 
wrote a laboured letter, entreating him 

. , i April, 1524. 

to be quiet, and not take pen in hand 
against the good cause. " We admire your 
powers and gifts," — such was the strain of this 
curious document, — "we are thankful for all 
you have done for letters and religion ; but we 
require of you no efforts beyond your strength. 
God has not given you energy and courage to 
attack the monster roundly and boldly ; and while 
this is the case, it is best you should serve us in 
your own way. But at any rate do not join your 
force with our adversaries. If God shall not send 
you heart and soul amongst us, at least, let me 
entreat you to remain a silent spectator of our 
tragedy. Publish no books against me, and I will 
publish none against you." The tone of this letter 
was not likely to please Erasmus ; certainly it 
did not silence him ; for, in the following year, 
his treatise was published on the Free- 
dom of the Will. He chose his ground 
eautiously, and maintained it with great ability. 
He was much too wise to defend Indulgences 
or other abominations of the Papacy ; he had 
written too much about monks and convents to 
contradict Luther on subjects of that sort ; he did 
not enter on the difficult question of Church au- 

F F 4 



440 LUTHEE. 

thority, nor try to prove that the Pope might 
decree Arius and Pelagius to be sound and 
orthodox. He chose to attack rather than de- 
fend. Luther, in maintaining the doctrine of 
man's corruption by the fall, and his dependence 
on divine grace for the beginning of a new life, 
had written often impetuously and indiscreetly ; 
and now every exposed and unguarded point was 
assailed by one who was master of all the 
weapons of controversy. Luther took a year to 
reply, and then published his cele- 
brated treatise on the Bondage of the 
Will. It was no difficult matter to prove that 
the doctrine of his antagonist was not the doctrine 
of St. Paul ; for Erasmus, with all his learning, 
was a shallow theologian, and, in his eagerness to 
convict Luther of one class of errors, he had run 
to the opposite extreme, greatly underrating, "in 
his argument, that fatal predisposition to evil 
which is asserted in the Bible, and proved by all 
history and all experience. But neither did 
Luther make his own defences good at every 
point. His peculiar style, dealing so much in 
vehemence of assertion, and so little in guarded 
and measured statements, was little adapted for 
the discussion of the most perplexing of all moral 
questions ; and, from his reply, as from his pre- 



LUTHER. 441 

vious works, quotations may be made which, lite- 
rally taken, seem to leave man at once helpless 
and irresponsible. Unhappily, this treatise, like 
many others, was deformed by railing of the most 
offensive kind. Vile creature^ — Serpent, — A very 
fox, — A knave who has mocked God and religion, 
— are some of the terms of abuse heaped on the 
first scholar and writer of his day. It is easy to 
say that such was the style of that age ; it was a 
- style utterly disgraceful to the literature of any 
age ; and Luther, who was no slavish follower of 
old customs, should have taught men better. 

Far more disastrous in its effects Zwinglius 
was the Sacramentarian controversy, Sacramen- 
Bitter were the feuds which grew out ta * iall s- 
of it; and they were feuds between men who 
should have been united, as a family of brothers, 
in the bonds of a common faith. Zwinglius, like 
Luther, had received the gospel, not from man, 
but from God. " In the year 1516" he began 
to preach it, he tells us himself, " before any one 
in Switzerland had heard the name of Luther." 
Yet to the same conclusions had they been led, 
without communication or concert of any kind, 
on the great points which divided the Christian 
world. " In all my days>" says Zwinglius, " I 



442 LUTHER. 

have not written a letter to Luther, nor he to me. 
I have purposely abstained from correspondence, 
because I was desirous by this means to let all 
men see how uniform the Spirit of God is." 
Alas ! that between men, thus taught and guided, 
the bond of peace should be broken ! Alas ! that 
the holy rite, intended by the Saviour to be a 
pledge of love among all His followers, should 
have become the war-cry of rival parties ! 

The doctrine of the Church of Rome was simple 
on the subject of the Eucharist. We may believe 
it, or reject it, but at least we understand what 
she meant. The consecrated bread, she tells us, 
is no longer bread ; but as much, and as certainly, 
the flesh of Christ, our Lord, as was the body 
that once hung upon the cross. The doctrine of 
Zwinglius was simple too. The bread, after con- 
secration, he tells us, is bread, and nothing more 
than bread, just as the waters of baptism are 
the pure, unaltered element ; but, by Christ's ap- 
pointment, it is made a symbol of His body 
which was given for the life of the world ; and it 
is chosen to be a symbol, because, as bread 
nourishes men's physical frame, so Christ's doc- 
trine, received by faith, is the spiritual nutriment 
of His true disciples. Luther's meaning is not 
so clear. The bread, according to him, was 



LUTHEE. 443 

bread still ; but Christ's bodily presence was su- 
peradded to it. The letter of Scripture, he said, 
must be our guide : when Christ says His body is 
in the Sacrament, at our peril shall we deny it, 
and say He was talking in a figure. The answer 
has been given a thousand times, that Christ, at 
that rate, becomes successively a Door, a Rock, and 
a Vine ; and why symbolical language is less ad- 
missible in one case than the other, the wit of man 
has never yet discovered. Yet for his favourite 
doctrine of Consubstantiation, as opposed to that 
of Eome and Geneva, the German Eeformer 
would have gone willingly to the prison or the 
stake. His own exposition of it was as follows, 
and the illustration, which he repeats on more 
occasions than one, is apt and ingenious : — " Fire 
and iron are two substances; yet are they so 
mixed in red-hot iron, that every part is both iron 
and fire. How much more, then, may the glo- 
rious body of Christ be bread, after the same 
fashion, in every part of the substance." 
' One might have supposed that men thoroughly 
agreed as to their rule of faith, — rejoicing in one 
common deliverance, and living from day to day 
on the same vital truths, — might have taken the 
Lord's supper each in his own way, and had no 
wr anglings at the table of their common Lord. Yet 



444 LUTHER. 

when Luther was exhorted to peace, and reminded 
that the points in dispute were secondary matters, 
he replied indignantly, " One or other, — the 
Swiss or we, — must be the ministers of Satan." 
(Ecolampadius from Basle, Bucer from Strasburg, 
and Zwinglius from Zurich, entered the lists with 
the great Reformer ; in temper they had greatly 
the advantage; and, startling as the denial of 
Christ's bodily presence, in any shape, sounded 
to those who had been brought up in the opposite 
faith, none could deny that their learning and 
ability made their cause plausible, at least. The 
first of these eminent men was a fellow-townsman 
of Erasmus, who was consulted by the Senate of 
Basle before they permitted the work of CEco- 
lampadius to be published : his public reply was 
evasive and characteristic ; — " The work was 
learned, eloquent, elaborate ; -pious he would 
gladly call it, if any thing could be pious which 
was contrary to the decisions of the Church." 
At a later day, writing to a friend, he said, with 
the candour which made him often so troublesome 
an ally: — "A new dogma has arisen, that there 
is nothing in the Eucharist except bread and 
wine. To confute this is now a very difficult 
matter; for John (Ecolampadius has fortified it 



LUTHER. 445 

by so many evidences and arguments, that the 
very elect might almost be seduced by them" 
The year, in which the enemies of 

J . A.D. 1527. 

the Reformation, — the Pope and the 
Emperor, — were fighting out their own quarrel, 
was a year of fierce dispute among its friends. 
Luther supposed himself to be contending for the 
honour of his Lord, for the truth of Scripture, 
for all that was vital and precious in one of the 
Sacraments of the Church. The adverse party, 
he thought, were denying the very words of 
Christ, and turning sacred mysteries into vulgar 
realities. So his zeal kindled, as the controversy 
went on, and, at last, the Swiss Reformers ranked 
in his eyes with the blindest and most obstinate 
adherents of the Papacy. Wise men wished for 
peace, but all attempts at mediation proved vain. 
After many failures, a last attempt was made in 
the autumn of 1529, when, at the earnest entreaty 
of the Landgrave of Hesse, Luther and Me- 
lancthon gave the three Sacramentarian divines a 
meeting at Marburg. One grieves to read 
words like these addressed to Zwinglius, before 
the conference began, by Bucer, Luther's own 
disciple and cordial friend, — " Luther, most re- 
spectable Zwinglius, is all fury ; do you, I beseech 
you, be all mildness, and manage him as you 



446 LUTHEE. 

would a deranged brother, leading him to truth 
by fair language." We grieve yet more to learn 
that Luther had made a proposal, which was 
scouted by the Landgrave, that "some honest 
Papists should be present at the conference as 
witnesses against the Swiss." Coming in this 
temper, we are not surprised that Luther made 
all agreement and compromise impossible. Two 
Oct. 2, 3. days were spent in discussion ; but, 

as he had begun by saying that he 
would "listen neither to sense nor reason, with 
the words of God before him" a long journey 
seemed to have been taken to little purpose. 
Behind the words Hoc est corpus meum he reso- 
lutely entrenched himself, and maintained, in 
reply to all argument from Scripture or from 
analogy, that one meaning they had, and no other 
they could have. Very sad is Luther's own 
account of the parting ; — " They supplicated us 
to bestow upon them the title of brothers. Zwin- 
glius implored the Landgrave, with tears, to grant 
this. We did not, however, accord to them this 
appellation of brothers ; all we granted was that 
which charity requires us to bestow even upon 



LUTHEK. 447 

Time went on, and every y ear found Luther > s 

the Reformed party yet stronger, enemies kept 

in check. 
while political combinations of many 

kinds helped to divert the attention, and embarrass 
the counsels, of their most formidable enemies. 
According to all human calculation, nothing could 
have been easier than for the Pope and Emperor 
to enforce the decree of Worms. Even Saxony 
was divided ; and Duke George, in the Southern 
portion, was for ever raging against the new 
doctrine, while the Elector Frederic, in the first 
instance, and his brother and successor John, at a 
later day, let it grow and flourish under their 
protection. Yet enemies near at hand, and ene- 
mies afar off, seemed to threaten the Reformer in 
vain. Clement VII. and Charles V. were allies 
at one time, and issued anathemas and decrees 
against Luther and all who harboured or followed 
him ; but presently peace was exchanged for war, 
and the heretics were all at large, while the 
Imperialist forces, after sacking 
Rome, had made the Pope himself 
their prisoner. At a later period Charles's own 
capital was threatened : Solyman, with an im- 
mense army, was before Vienna, and 

J . , " Oct. 1529. 

m twenty successive assaults di- 
rected all his strength against that bulwark of 



448 LUTHER. 

Christendom ; but by " a great miracle of God," 
as Luther said truly and devoutly, the siege was 
raised, and the boasting Infidel arrested in his 
march of triumph. French wars, — intrigues and 
conquests in Italy, — journeys to Spain, — Turk- 
ish invasions, — all came in turn ; and, while 
the great European potentate was busy with this 
world's politics, the man, whom he had de- 
nounced and sentenced years ago, dwelt at Wit- 
temberg as in a guarded fortress, and with his 
own favourite weapons, the word of God and faith 
and prayer, was winning fresh conquests from 
month to month. 

Much had to be done meanwhile, 
Beligious ... , . , 

worship and in relation to worship and ceremonies, 

ceremonies. w hi cn required wisdom and prudence 
of no common kind. It is curious to see how 
much of patience and charity was exhibited by 
Luther in arrangements of this sort, as contrasted 
with the fiery zeal of his controversial writings, 
and the intolerant spirit manifested towards the 
Swiss Reformers. At Marburg he would yield 
nothing for peace. The men who would not 
interpret literally four words of Scripture were 
all disowned and denounced as heretics. Yet 
at Wittemberg, when the churches of Saxony 
were to be remodelled in accordance with the 



LUTHER. 449 

faith of the Reformers, and the delicate question 
had to be settled how much should be retained, 
and how much discarded, of the ancient obser- 
vances, every thing was yielded which did not 
touch the vital doctrines of the Gospel. Latin 
hymns and canticles were retained ; the new mi- 
nisters wore vestments like those of the Romish 
priests ; altars and lighted tapers were still per- 
mitted in the churches, and devotees knelt before 
them at pleasure. These things, Luther said, " we 
retain till they grow old, or till it seem good to 
change them. If it please any man to do other- 
wise, I permit him to do as he likes best." He re- 
commended the strict observance of Lent, without 
binding men to it by any positive regulation ; but 
the excesses of carnival times, and other practices 
which had become associated with sacred usages, 
at once dishonouring religion and degrading and 
corrupting the people, he did his utmost to re- 
strain. At the same time Catechisms were pro- 
vided for the young ; and plain comments on the 
Epistle and Gospel of the day, with well-selected 
portions of Scripture, were inserted in the Service- 
book. Homilies, too, of a suitable kind, were pro- 
vided by his active mind and busy pen, to be read 
by men who were not gifted as preachers ; and 
simple expositions of Christian doctrine, or intel- 
G G 



450 LUTHER. 

ligible exhortations to the practical duties of life, 
took the place of childish legends, and half-serious, 
half-comic addresses, by which the pulpit was so 
often disgraced. All was done in concurrence with 
the civil power ; and in the Elector John, who 
was at once a wise prince, and a devout, zealous, 
well-taught Christian, he found an enlightened 
patron, and a willing helper. Evangelical pastors 
were settled in parishes; incompetent ministers 
were removed ; schools were established wherever 
sufficient funds could be provided. For the last 
Luther had a special care, charging the town ma- 
gistrates not to let their youth grow up "like 
grass in the forest," and reminding them that 
"serious, honest, well-taught citizens were the 
safety and strength of their country ; not great 
treasure, or fine houses, or strong walls, or well- 
appointed armies." Wisely, too, like one who 
felt that his work, as the pastor of Christ's flock, 
and the builder up of a spiritual temple, was to 
pursue disciples every where, and " by all means " 
to "gain some " of every age and every class, he 
was careful to provide milk for babes, as well as 
meat for strong men. " Above all? he said, " we 
must bring the simple-minded and the young to 
the knowledge of the Gospel by perpetual instruc- 
tion ; and to this end we must read, sing, preach, 



LUTHER. 451 

write prose and poetry ; yea, more, — if such 
means would further this good purpose, I would 
let them ring all the bells, and play all the organs, 
and make every possible noise that man can 
make." 

The re-distribution of ecclesiastical old and New 
revenues was a subject of anxiety to Endowments. 
the early Reformers, and the course recommended 
by Luther was wise and just. "We no longer 
say masses for the dead," he said, writing to a 
friend, " or do other things for which these funds 
were left. They should be resumed by the ruling 
powers of the state, and employed in doing good 
to men's souls according to the will of Christ." 
In some places, where the religious endowments 
were very large, a portion was set apart for found- 
ing hospitals and colleges ; provision was made, 
too, for monks and nuns who held to their vows ; 
but religious teaching was reckoned the main 
thing, — teaching for old and young, in plain, 
intelligible German, out of the pure word of God ; 
and for this purpose the pastor and the school- 
master went hand in hand, wherever the influence 
of Wittemberg extended. 

One evil, which soon began to appear among 
pretended friends of the Reformation, roused the 
indignation of Luther, and called forth his sternest 

G G 2 



452 LUTHEK. 

censures. In Germany, as elsewhere, the landed 
proprietors soon began to covet the church lands, 
and hoped to enrich themselves out of the spoil of 
abbeys and monasteries. A simpler ritual and a 
humbler ministry, it was argued, would be main- 
tained at far less cost than the ancient faith, with 
its gorgeous spectacles, and its army of monks and 
priests. Churches might be dispensed with, said 
some ; teachers exclusively devoted to their office, 
and supported out of public funds, were not ab- 
solutely necessary, according to the new order of 
things, said others ; and what was not wanted for 
sacred purposes naturally reverted to the original 
proprietors. These robbers of churches and the 
poor Luther denounced as a disgrace to Christen- 
dom. " The matter is very serious," he wrote to 
Spalatin ; " it torments me exceedingly. When the 
Prince was here, I forced myself into his bed- 
chamber, that I might have a private audience 
with him on the subject." In the face of the 
court, he presented a remonstrance to the Elector's 
son, and vowed to his friends that if the evil were 
not at once repressed with a strong hand, he would 
arraign the wrong-doers publicly in the face of 
Europe, and make their names a by- word of re- 
proach. His voice prevailed, and the work of 
plunder was arrested. A general visitation was 



LUTHER. 453 

ordered through the Elector's dominions for the 
settlement of questions relating to Church pro- 
perty and Church discipline ; and laymen of esta- 
blished reputation were associated with Luther, 
and his most trusted friends, in the work of 
reformation. Incompetent or immoral pastors, 
and those who persisted in teaching false doctrine, 
were to be deprived. If the common people, in 
the newly-settled parishes, after warning and in- 
struction, still clung to their ancient superstitions, 
they were to be allowed to sell their goods, and 
depart quietly elsewhere; — " not that the Elector 
wished to force any man's faith, but those who 
pertinaciously excited disturbance and sedition 
must be coerced and chastised." Not yet had the 
Reformers learnt to give the liberty they claimed ! 
So much of the old Popish spirit survived in 
those who had cast off the yoke of Rome ! 

Nor yet was their own battle won. Diet of 
Peace for Germany, by making one will m Spires. 
supreme in religious, as in civil, matters, was still 
the dream of the Emperor's life; and, accordingly, 
he summoned a Diet to meet at Spires, of which 
the object was to repeal a tolerant edict formerly 
passed at the same place, and to claim the execu- 
tion of the long-suspended Decree of Worms. 

G G 3 



454 LUTHER. 

His brother Ferdinand presided. The Catholic 
Princes came in force with an imposing military 
array, like men prepared for war. John of Saxony 
was there, attended, not by a body-guard of sol- 
diers, but by the peace-loving, peace-breathing 
Melancthon. Yet little was gained by the domi- 
nant party, for while the reformed doctrine was 
proscribed, and further innovations were forbidden, 
the fearless attitude of the minority, and their 
bold appeal to a general council of all Christen- 
dom, or to a free congress of the German States, 
put courage into many fainting hearts, and won 
respect even from their enemies. Before God 
and man, for themselves and their people, the 
leaders protested against all invasion of the rights 
of conscience, and claimed to be judged by the 
word of God, " the sure rule of all doctrine, and 
April 25, a U ^f e 5" an( i from the day that the 
1029. document was signed "in a little room 

on the ground floor of the chaplain's house, still 
shown in St. John's Lane, near St. John's Church 
at Spires," the term Protestant, or Men of the 
Protest, has been current throughout Europe. 
The subscribing parties, besides deputies from four- 
teen free cities, were the Elector John, the Land- 
grave Philip of Hesse, the Margrave of Branden- 
burg, two Princes of Brunswick, and the Prince 
of Anhalt. 



LUTHER. 455 

Yet more important was the advan- Diet of 
tage gained by the Reformers, in the Augsburg. 
following year, at Augsburg, though the decree, 
which issued thence, sounded terrible to many. The 
Emperor himself was present, having pledged his 
word to the Pope to do his utmost, as an upright 
Sovereign, to restore peace to the Church, but 
having steadily refused to adopt severe measures 
against his German subjects, till all others had 
failed. No such assemblage had been seen since 
the memorable meeting at Worms, nine years be- 
fore. To that time the Emperor's thoughts must 
have travelled back. In the interval, he had pros- 
pered in war and peace ; his name had become 
the greatest name in Europe ; a King and a Pope 
had been his prisoners ; his influence was felt in 
every court; his alliance was sought by all his 
brother monarchs in turn. But against Luther no 
advantage had been gained. His doctrine, mean- 
while, had overspread half Germany. Princes and 
people were on his side. His books were gaining 
converts and disciples in other lands. Bulls and 
anathemas from Rome, — diets and edicts at home, 
— neither silenced the leader, nor daunted his 
followers. And now the same process was to be 
repeated. Were its beginnings more hopeful? 
Would its results be more prosperous? Such 

GG 4 



456 LUTHER. 

might have been the Emperor's reflections when 
the new Diet was opened ; but men, 

June 20. 1530. r . 

born to power like his, are hard to 
be persuaded that any thing is impossible to them ; 
therefore, after many failures, he resolved to at- 
tempt the work of pacification once more. All 
Germany united, that her sons might be ready for 
war against the Turks, was the popular motto of 
his opening address ; and complaints were added 
that all his efforts to put a stop to religious dis- 
sensions through many years had failed and come 
to nought. 

Luther was not present. It would have looked 
like braving the Emperor to stand before him 
while the old sentence of condemnation was still 
in force. His place was supplied by his three 
faithful friends, Melancthon, Spalatin, and Justus 
Jonas, — of whom the last had been to him like 
a brother or a son ever since the memorable 
journey to Worms ; he had joined company 
with the Reformer at Erfurth, had stood by him 
through those days of peril, and lived by his 
side at Wittemberg ever afterwards. The pro- 
testing Princes, too, were present, making com- 
mon cause with the theologians, and ready to 
claim for their brethren everywhere a full hearing, 
and a fair trial, when their time should come. On 



LUTHER. 457 

the other side, was the Pope's Legate, Campeggio, 
come from Italy to see how his master's wishes 
were carried out, — and a whole tribe of native 
churchmen and theologians, — Eck, Luther's old 
antagonist among the number, with four hundred 
and four propositions ready culled from the writ- 
ings of the Eeformers, which he offered to prove 
heretical and damnable. 

Melancthon had brought with him, what he 
had been carefully preparing for months, the 
Confession of Faith of the German Reformers, 
studiously drawn up so as to present the fewest 
points of antagonism to the established creed, and 
recommend their doctrine to candid and impartial 
listeners. The Elector and his friends demanded 
to have this read; and after some hesitation on 
the Emperor's part, and a refusal on their part to 
keep their place in the Diet, or even plead before 
the Court, on any other terms, it was 

. June 25. 

read. Charles heard it, — and men 
like Duke George, who hated the Reformation 
with a blind and cruel hatred, — '■ and the Pope's 
representative, — and numbers more who had 
judged of the new doctrine by the report of its 
enemies, and believed it to be very little better 
than blasphemy. Before them all, in a clear, 
strong voice, so that every word was heard to 



458 LUTHER. 

the remotest corner of the hall, the Chancellor 
of Saxony read out this famous document, sen- 
tence by sentence. The profoundest stillness 
reigned throughout the Assembly for two whole 
hours, till the last sentence was concluded ; and 
when the Emperor took a Latin copy of the Con- 
fession, and said that the affair was grave, and he 
must deliberate upon it, the Reformed party felt 
that, let the decision be what it might, the 
triumph of that day was really on their side. 
Luther wrote to the Elector, saying that he 
"was glad beyond measure to have lived to 
see the day when, through the medium of such 
an admirable Confession, Christ was publicly 
preached before so august an audience." 

The answer to the Confession was a, Refutation, 
as it was styled, drawn up by the theologians on 
the other side ; but while the former document 
was printed in a month, and making its way to 
every town in Germany, the latter was made so 
scarce, that the Reformers, after hear- 
ing it publicly read before the Diet, 
asked in vain for a copy. Then nearly two 
months were wasted in trying to make antagonist 
opinions coalesce. Strange to say, Melancthon 
was blinded by his love of peace, and hoped 
against hope that some common ground could be 



LUTHER. 459 

found for the men who held by the Church's in- 
fallibility, and the men who would be judged 
only by the word of God, — for the advocates of 
the unyielding Papacy, and the champions of the 
rights of conscience ; but all his concessions were 
too few ; mediators and reconcilers, lay and ec- 
clesiastic, met and talked in vain. So, at last, 
even the Emperor despaired of bringing the mi- 
nority to submission, and a decree was promul- 
gated, such as Clement or his Nuncio 

•11 1 X, 7 • 1 N0V « 19 ' 

might have drawn up. By this the 
Reformed Faith was utterly proscribed ; deep 
questions of theology were determined by the 
supreme authority ; all innovations in doctrine or 
worship were forbidden as offences against the 
state ; the armies of the empire were pledged to 
the assistance of the civil power wherever obe- 
dience was refused. 

Luther was at Coburg while these Luther at 
things were doing, situated half way Coburg. 
between Wittemberg and Augsburg, above a hun- 
dred miles from both places. It was a mountain 
solitude, much resembling his Patmos in the 
Wartburg; and his letters thence breathe the 
spirit of a man soaring upwards on the wings of 
faith and prayer, and calmly leaving with God 



460 LUTHER. 

the settlement of questions which were beyond 
the range of worldly politicians. He wrote to 
encourage his friends at one time, — to remon- 
strate with them at another. Better than all, 
he pleaded for them with God in supplications of 
the deepest earnestness, and of almost unearthly 
fervour. " Not a day passes but he spends three 
hours in prayer," wrote a friend at this time to 
Melancthon ; " I chanced to hear him once, when 
he was praying ; and O what spirit and faith were 
there in his very words ! He offers his petitions 
with all the reverence that is due to God, yet 
with such hope and faith, as if he felt that he was 
conversing with a father and a friend." He trem- 
bled for Melancthon, lest he should yield too much. 
'■' May the Lord sustain you, that your faith may 
not fail, but grow and triumph ! " was his message 
at one time ; " I pray for you, and have prayed, 
and will pray. I make sure, too, that I am heard, 
since I feel the Amen in my heart. Should that 
which we wish not happen, then will something 
else happen, which is better." He was never 
betrayed into any hope of reconciliation, and 
heard with sorrow and alarm what was attempted 
in that direction. He knew the adversary, and 
understood his own principles, too well. " So 
you are engaged in a notable work at Augsburg," 



LUTHER. 461 

he wrote to Spalatin ; " that, forsooth, of bring- 
ing the Pope and Luther to an agreement ; but 
the Pope will not consent, and Luther cries Nay. 
Take care ; don't lose your time and pains ; but 
if you succeed, then I promise to reconcile Christ 
and Belial." 

It was during the sitting of the Luther's 
Diet that Luther composed his noble Hymns. 
paraphrase of the 46th Psalm *, with which the 
towns and villages of Germany have been ring- 
ing from that time to this. Indeed, we shall 
overlook an element of mighty strength in carry- 
ing the Reformation forwards if we take no ac- 
count of the hymns which came from the pen of 
its leader, and found their way to the hearts of 
his countrymen in every rank. They made a 
bond of union among men who knew little of 
Creeds and Articles. While theologians were 
disputing about niceties of doctrine, every devout 
man could understand the blessedness of singing 
God's praises in good honest German, instead of 
gazing idly at the mass, or joining in a Latin 
litany. The children learnt Luther's hymns in 
the cottages, and martyrs sang them on the scaf- 
fold. In Magdeburg, where Luther had once 

* See NOTE (H H). 



462 LUTHER. 

begged bread for the poor scholars, his own 
strains were heard, and helped to draw many to 
his side. An old cloth-weaver, sitting in a public 
part of the city, sang a Lutheran hymn one day, 
and offered copies of it for sale. A Burgomas- 
ter, who had just been attending mass, came by; 
his indignation was kindled by the sound of 
heresy, and he sent the poor man to prison. 
The people rose, and on that very day declared 
that they would have Evangelical preachers, and 
chose trusty men from their own body to carry 
out their wishes. In Brunswick, where the new 
opinions were beginning to spread, and many of 
the young preachers were already in their favour, 
the first note sounded in public sometimes was a 
German Psalm given out from the pulpit, and 
the people, who were expecting a Latin hymn to 
the Virgin, gave back the response in a hearty 
chorus. Priest, thou liest, was a citizen's reply 
to one who came with learned arguments to prove 
the Romish doctrine the only true and safe one, 
and then he gave out the famous hymn, O God. 
look down from Heaven, which the whole congre- 
gation sang in triumph. 

Writings for ^ n prose, too, as well as poetry 

the people. an( j SO ng, we must remember Luther 
wrote for the people. We shall understand only 



LUTHER. 463 

half his greatness if we lose sight of his writings 
on practical divinity. His simple, unrivalled 
German style made Christianity, not a mystery 
for the learned, but a household lesson for pea- 
sants and mechanics. His aim was to elevate and 
purify men's common life, and to connect all their 
duties of every kind with God's word and will. 
Clergymen and schoolmasters have each their 
lesson. " Take care the people understand you," 
is the burden of his charge to one ; "Let hu- 
man learning and gospel truth go hand in hand," 
is his caution to the other. Masters are provided 
with texts for the ordering of their families ; and 
men-servants and maid-servants are warned to be 
faithful, not only for hire, but for conscience 
sake. There is the grace for meals, and the 
morning and evening prayer, and the Catechism, 
pronounced by the philosophical historian of the 
Reformation * to be " childlike and profound," 
which Luther himself, " old doctor as he was," 
repeated almost daily. " He displayed," says the 
same trustworthy witness, " a matchless talent for 
popular teaching." i( He is the patriarch of the 
austere and devout discipline and manners which 

* Ranke, who exclaims most feelingly, " Happy the man 
whose soul has been nourished by it, and who holds fast 
by it ! " 



464 LUTHEE. 

characterize the domestic life of Northern Ger- 
many." To have earned praise like this would 
have been enough for one life, if no more had 
been done in it. Had Luther's voice never reached 
beyond his native land, — if his public services of 
another kind had not placed him at the head of 
that noble band who won the great intellectual 
and moral triumph of the sixteenth century, — 
he would have ranked, according to this state- 
ment, with the men who have done the best work 
for their own times, and established the highest 
claim on the gratitude of posterity. 

The severity of the decree of Augs- 
Decreeof . . _ . _. 

Augsburg burg defeated its object ; lor the Jrro- 

not executed. testants were too strong to be thus 
handed over, as state offenders, for punishment. 
The Imperial sentence, therefore, was once more 
enrolled among the archives of Germany, but 
ao-ain no public officer received commission to 
brino- the proscribed party to justice. Charles 
himself, having in the most formal and solemn 
manner denounced the heresy , left the heretics to 
disperse themselves to their homes, and was soon 
busy in entreating the Pope to assemble a Council 
for all Christendom to give unity to the dis- 
tracted Church. In fact, the months spent at 



LUTHER. 465 

Augsburg had made him a wiser man. He had 
seen the Protestant leaders in council and debate, 
and understood them better. He had heard the 
Protestant Confession, and despised it less. These 
men were not wild fanatics, haters of law and 
order ; that creed was not a compound of folly and 
profaneness. It embraced the Trinity, the In- 
carnation, the Atonement, repentance, faith, obe- 
dience to the gospel rule, a future judgment, the 
resurrection of the saints to eternal life, — baptism, 
the door of entrance to the visible Church, — the 
Lord's Supper, a bond of union for the faithful, 
and a pledge of Christ's continual presence with 
his people for their spiritual refreshment and com- 
fort ; and was not this all that the Church itself 
held to be most precious in Christian doctrine ? 
had not the most learned fathers and the holiest 
saints written in almost the same strain, and wit- 
nessed by their lives and by their deaths for the 
same truths? So the Emperor might have 
thought; and so, doubtless, he did think, as he 
contrasted what the Pope had told him concern- 
ing Luther and his followers with what he had 
seen of John of Saxony, and listened to from the 
pen of Melancthon. 

Besides, when the final decree was League of 

. . . Till Smalcald. 

little more than a month old, the Dec. 31. 

H H 



466 LUTHEK. 

Protestant Princes met at Smalcald, and there 
resolved upon a league of mutual defence. They 
were joined by the deputies from fifteen ci- 
ties, Strasburg and Nuremberg heading the list, 
as they had done at Spires; and their united 
remonstrance and appeal to the justice of the 
Emperor was circulated throughout Europe, 
with a special and urgent request to the kings of 
England, France, and Denmark, for assistance 
against their own Sovereign in case of need. 
This movement towards insurrection was not dis- 
countenanced by Luther. He did not actively 
promote it; but neither did he authoritatively 
forbid it. In other days his language had been, 
" By the word alone we must combat and con- 
quer." When violence was apprehended from Duke 
George and others, and the Elector and Land- 
grave announced their determination to gather 
armies, if necessary, in defence of the gospel, 
he and his brother theologians had implored them 
to do any thing, and bear any thing, almost, be- 
fore they had recourse to arms. " War gains 
little, loses much, and ventures all," they wrote ; 
" gentleness loses nothing, ventures little, and 
gains every thing." Luther's change of tone at 
this period, considering the decision and positive- 
ness with which he had always counselled sub- 



LUTHEE. 467 

mission to Sovereign Princes, is a remarkable fact 
in his history. Even now, he did not counsel 
resistance. Jurists, he said, had examined the 
question, and advised upon it. As a theologian, 
he knew of no license for rebellion. But it was 
not his affair ; others must settle it. Either he 
was daunted by the threatening aspect of public 
affairs, and driven from his former confidence that 
God would work out His own will without per- 
mitting His servants to draw the sword ; or else 
some of his old energy was gone, and he was more 
content to let the potentates of this world choose 
their own policy, and justify to their own con- 
sciences what seemed doubtful and perplexing. 

Happily the war-cry between the Ee- Truce of 
formed leaders and the great Emperor Ratisbon. 
was not yet sounded. Another Turkish invasion 
was threatened ; and the Protestant Princes, act- 
ing in their new character of confederates, with 
interests apart from those of the empire, refused 
to furnish troops and supplies till they were as- 
sured of toleration for their religion. The Edict of 
Augsburg must be repealed, or a religious peace 
proclaimed, which would give them security and 
liberty. If these terms were granted, the Em- 
peror would have no more devoted subjects, and 
his armies no braver captains. Charles hesitated ; 

H H 2 



468 LUTHER. 

but danger pressed. In June, 1532, Solyman 
crossed the Hungarian frontier with an army of 
two hundred and fifty thousand men, and was all 
the bolder and more confident because Germany 
was divided. " Has your master made peace 
with Martin Luther?" was his question to 
Charles's ambassadors, when they sought to ar- 
rest his progress, and magnified the power and 
resources of their Sovereign. The Emperor 
could hardly fail to see what was apparent to the 
advancing enemy ; so, at last, he did make peace 
with Martin Luther, and signed the Truce of 
Ratisbon, giving the Protestants all 
they asked. Presently the whole 
empire was astir. The protesting cities were 
foremost in activity and zeal. Nuremberg alone 
contributed a thousand lances and fifteen pieces 
of artillery. An army was mustered near Vienna, 
such as Christendom had not seen for centuries. 
The Emperor was at its head, longing for a de- 
cisive engagement, and a victory, which should 
resound through Christendom ; but his great 
rival would not measure his strength with that of 
united Germany. The battle, for which Europe 
was waiting with almost breathless expectation, 
was never fought; Solyman retired as the Im- 
perial forces advanced, and, at last, after a blood- 



LUTHER. 469 

less campaign, withdrew within his own borders, 
having done the Reformers good service. 

The disorders of the Anabaptists, 
and the strange scenes enacted by and the 
them in Munster, must have a place Anabaptists 

' r A.D. 1534-5. 

in the history of Luther, for the same 
reason as the Peasants' war. His enemies made 
him responsible for both. By the despotism of 
Rome, the human intellect had been enfeebled 
and enslaved ; no wonder, then, that at the first 
sound of liberty some broke loose with frantic 
cries, and ran into the wildest excesses. A people, 
nurtured in childish ignorance and superstition, 
could not grow up in a few short years to the 
wisdom and sobriety of Christian manhood ; an- 
cient bonds of authority, too, were broken, and 
religious teachers of the new faith were supplied 
but slowly ; so false prophets were found in many 
places to impose upon the vulgar, and enthusiasts 
to mistake their own dreams for a revelation from 
heaven. The wildest opinions had been afloat in 
Holland, and different parts of Germany, before 
fanaticism gathered its armies, and set up its 
throne, in Westphalia. Some quoted the Apoca- 
lypse, making sure that its visions were speedily 
to become realities ; while others fancied them- 

H H 3 



470 LUTHER. 

selves chosen, like Israel of old, to be the Lord's 
host, and root out the ungodly from the earth. 
Strasburg was to be the new Jerusalem, said one, 
and a hundred and forty-four thousand apostles 
were to be scattered from it to gather in the 
Elect of God. Charles V., according to another 
theory, after his successes against the Turks, was 
to be the Captain of the Saints, to reconquer Je- 
rusalem, and be crowned there by an angel as 
Lord, under Christ, of this lower world. 

At Munster, in the year 1534, the spectacle 
was seen of a city surrendered to men whose 
religion was no better than madness, and ruled 
by a prophet-king, whose wild ravings passed for 
the voice of inspiration. An army of Anabap- 
tists had swarmed in from the surrounding coun- 
try ; the cry, Away with the children of Esau, re- 
sounded through the streets; and all, who would 
not receive the mark of a fresh baptism, without 
distinction of age or sex, were driven forth to 
banishment when the snow lay thick upon the 
ground. Churches were plundered, — literature 
and the arts proscribed, — all books burnt, the 
Bible only being spared. One John of Leyden 
became autocrat; and, among other privileges, 
took to himself fourteen wives. One of them 
displeased him, upon which he publicly beheaded 



LUTHER. 471 

her with his own hand, while the rest danced 
round the bleeding corpse, shouting, Glory to God 
in the highest Yet for this man his subjects 
fought as if he had been an angel, and endured a 
lengthened siege with all the horrors of famine. 
At last, a nis;ht attack, aided by 

. ?. , ' , June24.1535. 

treachery withm the walls, proved 
successful, and the Bishop, with his allies, be- 
came master of the city. Savage cruelty in the 
conquerors disgraced their triumph ; for the de- 
posed king, with two of his ministers, was led 
about for six months from place to place, and 
made a spectacle to the gazing crowd; and then 
the three were publicly executed, having first 
had their flesh torn with red-hot pincers. 

How much Luther had in com- 

Luther 
mon with the fanatics of Munster and the 

* - t* j n ,1 . p Anabaptists. 

may be interred from the saying oi * 

their chief, that " the world had seen four pro- 
phets; two of them were true, and two false. 
King David and John of Leyden were the true 
ones ; the Pope and Luther were the false ones ; 
but Luther was worse than the Pope." Yet to 
many the name of the Reformer became more 
odious than ever, because the world had seen 
such a specimen of religious phrensy. Men, who 
had not faith to appreciate the interests at stake, 

H H 4 



472 LUTHER. 

thought that evils in the Church had better be 
let alone than assailed at such a risk. " Better 
that men should sleep on, as they had done for 
ages," numbers said, 6l than wake up to madness, 
and threaten destruction to civilized society. The 
common people had learnt in the schools of the 
new prophets that they might think and do as 
they pleased ; and now the world had seen what 
sort of harvest would be reaped if such doctrines 
were sown more widely." Timid spirits were 
daunted and amazed. The cause of the Reform- 
ation became associated in the minds of thou- 
sands with lawless violence, daring profaneness, 
and brutish sensuality. Luther mourned in an- 
guish of spirit for these excesses and their sad 
consequences. " What can I write respecting 
these poor wretches at Munster?" he had said, 
while the fanatics were unsubdued ; " is it not 
plainly apparent that the devil reigns there, or 
rather a whole troop of devils ? " This was hot 
lightly spoken by him, but in sober earnest. It 
was the expression of a deliberate opinion that a 
large portion of the evils which afflict mankind 
came immediately from the Tempter. His own 
bodily pains and mental anxieties, mysterious 
deaths, idiotcy, impaired senses, strange noises 
heard at times of devotion, storms of unusual vio- 



LUTHER. 473 

lence, were all referred by him, in common con- 
versation, to Satanic agency. Even children, he 
thought, were sometimes stolen by the Evil One, 
and imps substituted without a human soul. t( I 
saw a child of this sort myself," he said, " which 
had no human parents, but proceeded from the 
devil. In outward form, it exactly resembled 
other children ; but it consumed as much every 
day as four threshers could eat. It yelled out 
like a mad creature when touched ; and if any- 
thing went wrong in the house, it danced about 
for joy." 

To account for a belief which 

His doctrine 
seems to us so strange in so great a on Satanic 

• i , i ,i , -r influence. 

mind, we must remember that .Lu- 
ther had grown up in a region which superstition 
and romance had peopled with unearthly beings. 
These were supposed to haunt the forest and the 
mine, — to gather round the peasant's fire-side, 
and look with a grudging eye on his little store, 
and plot mischievously against his comfort. On 
a boy and youth so imaginative as Luther these 
legends would produce an impression never to be 
effaced ; and, in maturer life, when the Scriptural 
doctrine respecting the personality of the Tempter 
was received with entire simplicity, and " to resist 
the devil" in the world, in the Church, and in his 



474 LTTTHEK. 

own heart, became his settled purpose and daily 
business, the recollections of \ his early years 
connected themselves with the faith of his man- 
hood. The powers of the world to come were to 
him an ever-present reality ; and the Evil One 
became in his eyes, not only the ruler of the 
hosts of evil, the active enemy of God and good- 
ness, but the busy, malicious contriver of almost 
all that warred against human happiness. The 
tales which Luther believed and reported as to 
Satan's visible influence, and troublesome inter- 
meddling with the affairs of common life, sound 
ludicrous to our ears ; but by him all was spoken 
with earnestness and reverence. The worse the 
infliction, too, — the more pervading and penetrat- 
ing this antagonist power of evil, roaming over 
God's earth, hindering His truth, and afflicting 
His people, — the more fervent were his prayers 
for the universal diffusion of Scriptural light and 
knowledge. " Preach the truth, and so expel 
him who is the father of lies ; give the people 
wholesome nourishing food, the bread of life, and 
poison will be loved no longer ; " — this was the 
burden of many a remonstrance, the theme of 
letters to Electors, and exhortations to preachers, 
and treatises scattered far and wide among the 
German people. This was his cry now that 



LUTHER. 475 

Munster, as he thought, was invaded and pos- 
sessed by the Evil One. " The devil," he 
wrote, " is a spirit who jeers at horsemen and 
cuirasses. The most potent weapon against him 
is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
God. But our nobles, our bishops and princes, 
will not permit the gospel to be preached, that 
the souls of men may be snatched from perdition. 
They think, forsooth, that it is enough to cut 
men's throats." 

In the year 1539 a vast accession 
p i • -, i -n Death of 

ol strength was gained to the Pro- Duke George. 

testant side by the death of Duke A,D - 1539 - 
George, and the transfer of his dominions to one 
who was a zealous disciple of the Reformation. 
By will the Duke bequeathed them to his bro- 
ther Henry, but with a proviso that, if any reli- 
gious innovations were attempted, they should be 
forfeited to the Emperor, and held by him in 
trust for some more orthodox Prince. The be- 
quest, with its conditions, was announced to 
Henry while the Duke was on his death-bed. 
His reply to the Ambassadors was an indignant 
refusal to give up his religion for a bribe ; but, 
before they could return and report his decision, 
the Duke died. Henry then, as the next heir, 



476 LUTHER. 

quietly assumed the government. Luther was 
summoned to Leipsic; and there, beneath that 
voice of power, the hearts of the citizens were 
bowed as the heart of one man. A single ser- 
mon, it is said, decided them for the Reformation. 
Silently, no doubt, the leaven had been spreading 
through many a year ; and now, almost with one 
consent, the towns and villages of the principality 
followed the example of the capital. 

The last years of Luther's life, 

Luther's de- ^ • 

clining years, partly through bodily infirmity, partly 

from distresses and anxieties of many 
kinds, seem to have been years of gloom. His 
strength was prematurely spent. Never, proba- 
bly, since the days of the Apostle, who had on 
him u the care of all the churches," was such a 
burden laid on any single mind ; and, before old 
age was reached, the robust frame was bowed 
down, and the spirit of almost indomitable energy 
was sighing for repose. His work for many 
years had been distracting, exhausting, almost 
consuming, from its extent and variety. He had 
to answer letters from every country in which the 
Reformed doctrine was beginning to make way, — 
to confer with Princes and theologians on subjects 
of the deepest importance, affecting the destinies 



LUTHER. 477 

of the Church for generations to come, — to listen 
to the tale of fugitive monks and nuns, who 
thought that Wittemberg was their natural place 
of shelter, because his writings had unsettled 
their ancient faith, — to animate and restrain his 
followers by turns, — to build up with one hand, 
like the men of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day, 
while he held a weapon in the other, — to repel 
assaults from abroad, and organize a new eccle- 
siastical system at home, — by frequent preach- 
ing to instruct his own flock, whom he loved like 
children, and keep them sound in the faith, while 
his published writings, in German and in Latin, 
carried to the Reformers of his own land, and of 
other lands, his judgment on the thousand ques- 
tions which were being canvassed throughout 
Christendom. His works alone are a perfect 
prodigy of industry and mental activity. The 
marvel is, that the author did any thing in his 
generation besides sitting and writing till his 
hand was tired, and his eye failed, through all the 
months and years which followed the date of his 
earliest publication. A complete list of all that 
he sent abroad, if it could be procured, would be 
a literary curiosity, such as the world has never 
seen. "Whether his earliest years were his most 
fruitful ones cannot perhaps be ascertained ; but 



478 LUTHER. 

for them the account stands as follows : — For 
1520, a hundred and thirty -three publications, — 
for 1521 (a year partly busy, and partly idle, 
the year of Worms and the Wartburg), only 
forty, — for 1522, a hundred and thirty , — for 
1523, a hundred and eighty-three. No wonder if 
his " eye was dim," and his " natural force 
abated," by the time his sixtieth year was 
reached. " I am feeble and weary of life," he 
writes in 1543 ; " I would fain bid the world 
good bye, which is now given over to the Wicked 
One." " Old and useless," he calls himself next 
' year ; and says, " the world is like a worn-out 
garment." The Emperor and the empire were for- 
gotten by him, " except in his prayers." Five 
years before, he had spoken of himself as " aged 
and Emeritus" and was longing to enjoy " the old 
man's pleasure in a garden, contemplating God's 
wonders in creation, musing on trees and birds 
and flowers ; " but " my sins," he said, " have 
well deserved that I should lose enjoyments like 
these, and be condemned to watch over a crowd 
of affairs so pressing, and so often fruitlesss." 
And so it was to the end ; not for his sins, we 
think, but for the good of numbers who were 
guided by his wisdom and piety, he was kept 
at his post, toiling on through years of anxiety, 



LUTHEE. 479 

watching with eager interest the progress of the 
great religious movement which covered a widen- 
ing surface from year to year, yet mourning 
often, like one defeated and overborne by the 
antagonist powers of evil, for the wickedness 
which met and thwarted him in all his efforts. 
" If I had known in the beginning," he says 
most touchingly, alluding to disappointments of 
this sort, " that men were so hostile to the word 
of God, I should have held my peace. I imagined 
that they sinned merely through ignorance." 
These words tell us, as plainly as a whole vo- 
lume, how much he had dared to hope when his 
own mind was first enlightened, and the gospel 
in its purity was given back to Christendom ; 
and the evening of his days would look dark as 
compared with the brightness of that early morn. 

Diets were held year after year, and ^ 

J J 3 Progress of 

the endless question was discussed as the Refor- 

, . -r» . mation. 

to tolerating .Protestantism, or pro- 
scribing it. In the spring of 1545, the Princes 
of the empire, with bishops, deputies, and others, 
were gathered at Worms, as they had been 
twenty-four years before ; but neither the Em- 
peror was there, nor Luther. The Princes of the 
Protestant League were now the parties who re- 



480 LUTHEK. 

presented the cause of the Reformation in these 
national councils, and political questions were 
mixed up with religious ones, and the opposing 
parties were assuming an attitude which be- 
tokened the near approach of actual war. This 
Luther did not live to see, happily for his own 
peace. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal 
was a sentence as deeply engraved on his heart 
as any portion of the lively oracles. To conquer 
by the word of God was his purpose all through, 
and many were the triumphs of that sort which 
he lived to see. Before he finished his course, 
Germany and Switzerland were half-won. Eng- 
land had renounced the Pope, and was receiving 
fresh light from year to year, as godly preachers 
were, scattered more widely through her parishes. 
The first confessors in Scotland were contending 
bravely for the truth, and Wishart, Knox's 
teacher, had already sealed his testimony with 
his blood. The seed was sown widely over the 
soil of France, — Margaret, the sister of Francis 
the First, having been among the earliest con- 
verts, — and many of its large towns had congre- 
gations of zealous disciples. Italy, the Pope's 
own land, had been invaded; considerable im- 
pression was made on some of the Northern 
cities ; and in its petty courts were found ladies 



LUTHER. 481 

of noble and princely birth, who shone, like stars, 
amid the surrounding gloom. 

Luther lived to witness two events Jesuits and 
destined to exercise the most im- Council of 

. Trent. 

portant influence on the cause to 
which his life was devoted. On the 27th of Sep- 
tember, 1540, Paul the Third, after many doubts 
and misgivings, sealed the Bull which incorpo- 
rated the Order of Jesuits. Thus, in the day 
when vast numbers were falling away from their 
allegiance to the See of Rome, Loyola and his 
devoted associates, then a little band, pledged 
themselves to be the Pope's servants, and the 
champions of the Church, at all hazards, in all 
fortunes, wherever and whenever their services 
were wanted. By the same Pope 

i rx •! n m ■. DeC - 13 ' 1545 - 

the Council of lrent was convened, 
whose decrees were to fix the faith of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church, and to build up an im- 
passable barrier between those who cling to the 
Papacy and those who receive the word of God 
as the one rule of their faith and practice. 



Luther's last journey was from "Wit- , , , 
temberg to Eisleben. After all his death. 
labours and conflicts, by a remarkable • 

I I 



482 LUTHEK. 

Providence, he returned home to die. He had 
been born on the lands of the Count of Mans- 
feld, and it chanced that two brothers of that 
noble house had a dispute, which they entreated 
Luther to come and settle. He went at the end 
of January, 1546, and succeeded in his mission. 
To this journey we owe two or three letters wrh> 
ten to his wife within a fortnight of his death. 
This is one of them : — "To the gracious dame, 
Catherine Luther, my dear spouse, who is tor- 
menting herself quite unnecessarily, grace and 
peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. Dear Cathe- 
rine, thou shouldst read St. John, and what the 
Catechism says respecting the confidence we ought 
to have in God. Thou aflflictest thyself just as if 
God were not All-powerful, and able to raise up 
new Doctor Martins by dozens, if the old Doctor 
Martin were to be drowned in the Saale. There 
is One who takes care of me in His own way, 
better than thou and all the angels could ever do. 
He sits by the side of the Almighty Father. 
Tranquillize thyself, therefore. Amen." 

Another letter, the last he ever penned, runs 

thus : — "To my sweet wife, Catherine Luther 

Yon Bora, grace and peace in the Lord. We 

hope to be with you again this week, if it please 

• God. The Almighty has manifested the power 



LUTHER. 483 

pf His grace in this affair. The lords have come 
to an agreement upon all the points in dispute, 
except two or three; and, among other great 
ends achieved, the two Counts are reconciled. 
God has fulfilled our prayers. I send thee some 
trout the Countess has given me. The lady is 
full of joy at seeing peace re-established in her 
family." He then speaks of some rumours about 
the Emperor and the French, and adds, " Let 
them go on with their news; true or false, it 
matters not ; we await in patience God's decla- 
ration of His will. 

Martin Luther. 

EebruaryU. 1546." 

Luther, when he started on his journey, was 

feeble and suffering ; but said that he could (( lie 

down on his death-bed with joy if he could first see 

his dear lords reconciled ; " and God gave him both 

his wishes. Three days after be had announced to 

his wife that his peacemaking work was finished, 

his indisposition increased to serious 

.„ , . . , Feb. 17. 

illness ; but at supper-time he joined 

his friends, and conversed in a strain, partly gay 

and partly serious. He spoke of his death as 

near; and the question having been asked by 

some one present, whether departed saints would 

II 2 



484 LUTHEK. 

recognize each other in the future world, he said, 
Yes, he thought they would. In the night, his 
two sons, and his faithful friend, Justus Jonas, 
watched by his side; and as he grew rapidly 
worse, two physicians, and the Countess with me- 
dicines and cordials, came to offer their aid. But 
all human help was vain ; the great Reformer's 
work was done; and where he had played in 
childhood, it was God's will that he should lie 
down and die. After midnight, feeling that 
death was upon him, he thus poured forth his 
soul in prayer : — " Heavenly Father, everlasting 
and merciful God! Thou hast revealed to me 
Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whom 
I have preached, whom I have experienced, whom 
I love and worship as *ny beloved Sacrifice and 
Redeemer, — Him whom the godless persecute, 
dishonour, and blaspheme." He then repeated 
thrice, " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit. 
Thou hast redeemed me, Thou God of Truth ; 
surely God hath so loved the world." Between 
two and three on the morning of the 18th he en- 
tered into his rest. 

His funeral, His remains were placed at the 
Feb. 22. disposal of the Elector, who decided 
that they should rest in the church at Wittem- 
berg, where his living voice had been so often 



LUTHER. 485 

heard. Some fifty miles separated the two 
places, and as the funeral procession passed from 
one to the other, the country people, men, women, 
and children, flocked out of all the villages, and, 
with weeping eyes, joined the train of mourners. 
The procession was met at the city-gate by the 
Prefect, who led the way to All Saints' Church, 
attended by the leading members of the Univer- 
sity, and by a great multitude of townsmen, who 
had watched the Keformer's course through thirty 
eventful years, had listened often to his stirring 
exhortations, and gloried, in his expanding fame. 
The Counts of Mansfeld, Justus Jonas, and Lu- 
ther's dearest friends, were gathered round the 
bier ; and to Melancthon it belonged, as of right, 
to pronounce the funeral oration. His heart was 
too full for any laboured eulogy ; but he gave a 
simple, truthful description of the great qualities 
of the man whom he knew so well, and concluded 
with a fervent prayer to Him who had bestowed 
such grace upon His servant, and alone could 
raise up others like him. A plain tomb marked 
the spot where Luther's remains were committed 
to the dust, and the inscription recorded simply 
his birth-place, his age, and the date of his death. 
There was no need for a longer Hismonu- 
epitaph. Luther's deeds are written ments - 

II 3 



486 LUTHER. 

in the history of every nation which, in the six- 
teenth century, embraced Christianity according 
to God's wordy in the place of the counterfeit 
Christianity of the middle ages. No Armadas 
from Spain, now-a-days, carry terror to En- 
glish ears; the lands of Elizabeth and Philip 
have changed places, and ours is the Empire 
on which the sun never sets. We know what 
Scotland was in that age, — the land of fierce, 
domestic strife, of lawless chieftains, and a half- 
barbarous people ; and now she is the very home 
of peaceful industry ; her rugged soil, on which 
battles and forays were so frequent, is subdued 
by skilful husbandry; the rights and duties of 
citizenship have succeeded to the multiplied evils 
of clanship ; and her sons, manly, intelligent, en- 
during, well-principled, have made her name ho- 
noured wherever it is known. With the weak 
country made strong, the divided country made 
one, the poor country grown rich in all the ele- 
ments of civic and social wealth, we contrast 
Italy, the Pope's own land, and Ireland, 
long ruled by his priests ; and if other instances 
are wanting, we might cross the Atlantic, and 
point to Brazil and Mexico, on the one hand, 
and, on the other, to the great and growing com- 
munities of New England, sprung from Puritan 



LUTHER. 487 

settlers, who carried the Bible and their religion 
with them. In all this we see the results of the 
great Eevolution which gave light and Christian 
liberty to some of the European kingdoms, and 
left others under the cramping, withering influ- 
ence of Rome. 

We are sure that the word of God, scattered 
over England for three centuries, preached in our 
Churches, read in our mansions and our cottages, 
has made us what we are, — a sober-minded, in- 
dustrious, peace-loving, law -revering people. The 
harvest of our own national blessings we rejoice 
to connect with the sowing-time to which our 
history refers, and to feel that Luther, in all his 
greatness, belongs to universal Christendom. In 
our Courts, our Parliament, our busy Exchanges, 
our guarded homes, we see the standing memo- 
rials of what he wrought, and others like him. 
To the brave-hearted leader, and to those who 
followed in his track, we will pay our grateful 
thanks, knowing well that they were fallible and 
sinful men, subject to the passions, infirmities and 
prejudices of our common nature, but assured 
that grace and wisdom were given them to do a 
great work, zealously and faithfully, the like of 
which has not been seen since the Gospel accom- 
plished its first triumph over Heathenism. That 

ii 4 



488 LUTHER. 

work the noblest Englishmen have appreciated 
most truly ; and against all that has been spoken 
to its disparagement by little men in recent times, 
we rejoice to quote what was eloquently written 
by Milton, two centuries ago : " When I recall 
to mind, at last, after so many ages wherein the 
huge, overshadowing train of error had almost 
swept all the stars out of the firmament of the 
Church, how the bright and blissful Reformation, 
by Divine power, struck through the black and 
settled night of ignorance and anti-Christian ty- 
ranny, methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must 
needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or 
hears, and the sweet odour of the returning Gospel 
imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. 
Then was the sacred Bible sought out of the dusty 
corners, where profane falsehood and neglect had 
thrown it; the schools were opened; divine and 
human learning were raked out of the embers of 
forgotten tongues; the princes and cities came 
trooping apace to the newly-erected banner of sal- 
vation, — the martyrs, with the unresistible might 
of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness." * 

* Of Reformation in England, book i. 



LUTHER. 489 



In preparing this Memoir, I have had recourse 
principally to the following works : — 

1. "Waddington's History op the Reformation 
on the Continent, in three octavo volumes ; not 
written in a popular style, but admirable for its so- 
briety, good sense, and judicial impartiality. Luther's 
greatness is thoroughly appreciated; and the religious 
blessings of the Reformation, as well as its incidental 
benefits, are fully and faithfully detailed; but the 
faults of those whom the Author most commends are 
neither concealed nor spared. 

2. D'Aubigne's History op the Reformation 
in the Sixteenth Century, of which four volumes 
have appeared ; but the English Reformation is still 
untouched, and of the German Reformation we have 
nothing beyond the close of the Diet of Augsburg, in 
1530. It is hardly necessary to describe a work 
which has been so extensively read, and, by those who 
sympathize most cordially with the writer and his 
subject, so warmly approved.* Our language con- 
tains no such lively or picturesque narrative of the 
stirring events of that period, — no such glowing 

* In the Preface to his fourth volume, now six years old, 
the author tells us, that from 150,000 to 200,000 copies of 
the former three volumes have been sold in Great Britain 
and America. Probably the larger number has been 
reached, and more than reached, since that period, as cheap 
editions have been multiplied. 



490 LUTHER. 

eulogy of the earliest Reformers in Germany, France 
and Switzerland, — no account, at once so full, so 
learned, and so popular, of all that they did, and said, 
and wrote, and taught. " To exalt the name of Lu- 
ther," it has been well said, " is M. D'Aubigne's 
labour of love. He is a Protestant of the original 
stamp, and a biographer of the old fashion, — not a 
calm, candid, discriminating weigher and measurer of 
a great man's parts, but a warm-hearted champion of 
his glory, and a resolute apologist even for his errors." 
He should not, therefore, be read alone. 

3. Michelet's Life of Luther, written bt 
Himself, edited and enlarged by Mr. Hazlitt (one of 
Bogue's cheap volumes), is a precious depository of 
the most authentic information relating to the Re- 
former's public and private history. His letters, 
filling five octavo volumes, and his works, making up 
nearly twenty folios, have been carefully explored and 
sifted, with the view of collecting all that illustrates 
the Reformer's history, character, and opinions; and 
much that is interesting and characteristic has been 
added from his Table Talk. As Luther was the frank- 
est of men, this volume shows him as he really was, 
in all his simplicity and all his homeliness, with no 
attempt to hide a single fault, and no thought, cer- 
tainly, of parading a single virtue. 

4. Ranke's History of the Reformation in 
Germany, — of which three volumes out of Jive have 
been translated by Mrs. Austin, — is copious, accurate, 



LUTHER. 491 

dispassionate, profound, entering much more largely 
than the other works I have named into the political 
bearings of the Reformation, profuse in its informa- 
tion respecting Diets and other matters purely Ger- 
man, doing full justice to the Protestant Theologians 
and Princes in their noble struggle for the rights of 
conscience, but less calculated certainly for common 
readers than for those who can make history a study. 

There is a good sketch of the earliest events in 
Luther's public career, up to the Diet of Worms, in 
the Second Book of Robertson's Charles V., and 
a comprehensive statement, occupying some twenty 
pages, of the causes which contributed to the progress 
of the Reformation. 

In the same compass there is no such vigorously- 
drawn and life-like portrait of Luther as in a critique 
of Sir James Stephen's, first printed in the 138th 
number of the Edinburgh Review, and now re-pub- 
lished in the first volume of his Essays on Ecclesias- 
tical Biography. The extracts from the Reformer's 
writings are a most valuable selection of Lutheriana ; 
while the leading incidents of his career are touched 
upon with discriminating faithfulness, and the promi- 
nent features of his character are wisely, justly, elo- 
quently set forth. 

We must not omit to mention, as the last contribu- 
tion of English writers to a just estimate of Luther, 
Archdeacon Hare's Note W. in the second volume 



492 LUTHER. 

of his work, entitled The Mission op the Comforter. 
It is a full, learned, and most successful vindication of 
the great German from the attacks of Mr. Hallam, 
Sir William Hamilton, Dr. Mill, and Mr. Ward, — 
written by one who is perfectly master of his subject, 
and whose cordial sympathy with all that is pure and 
noble in the leader of the Reformation makes him 
kindle into fervour as he quotes one passage after 
another from Luther's writings (many of them little 
known to the English reader), and dwells upon traits 
of magnanimity which have been obscured by the 
mists of controversy. 



NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 



NOTE (Z). Page 325. 

The line of succession to the French crown 
was very regular for more than two hundred 
years, from the accession of Charles V. to the 
death of Henry III., with two exceptions, which 
took place at the accessions of Louis XII. and 
his successor Francis I. The first succeeded 
Charles VIII., the son of his second cousin ; the 
second was son to the second cousin of his prede- 
cessor. Charles V. was the common ancestor of 
all who reigned during the period we speak of; 
but Louis, the murdered Duke of Orleans, was 
the common ancestor of all who came after Charles 
VIII. The following table will help to fix these 
facts in the reader's mind. 

Charles V. 



I I 

Charles VI. Louis of Orleans. 

I 



Charles VII. Charles of Orleans, John, 

the prisoner of Agincourt. \ 

| Charles of 

Louis XI. Louis XII. Angouleme. 

I I 

Charles VIII. Francis L 



494 LUTHER. 



NOTE (A A). Page 328. 



The following is Ranke's description of this 
clever and most effective satire : — 

" He introduces Folly herself as interlocutor. 
Moria, the daughter of Plutus, born in the 
Happy Islands, nursed by Drunkenness and 
Rudeness, is mistress of a powerful kingdom, 
which she describes, and to which all classes of 
men belong. She passes them all in review, but 
dwells longer and more earnestly on none than on 
the clergy, who, though they refuse to acknow- 
ledge her benefits, are under the greatest obliga^ 
tions to her. She turns into ridicule the laby- 
rinth of dialectic in which theologians have lost 
themselves, the syllogisms with which they la- 
bour to sustain the Church as Atlas does the 
heavens, and the intolerant zeal with which they 
persecute every difference of opinion. She then 
comes to the ignorance, the dirt, the strange and 
ludicrous pursuits, of the monks, and their bar- 
barous and objurgatory style of preaching. She 
attacks the Bishops, who are more solicitous for 
gold than for the safety of souls, who think they 
do enough if they dress themselves in theatrical 
costume, and, under the name of the most re- 
verend, most holy, and most blessed Fathers in 
God, pronounce a blessing or a curse. And lastly, 
she boldly assails the court of Rome and the 
Pope himself, who, she says, takes only the plea- 
sure of his station, and leaves its duties to St. 
Peter and St. Paul. 

" This little work brought together, with singular 



NOTES. 495 

talent and brevity, matter which had for some 
time been current and popular in the world, gave 
it a form which satisfied all the demands of taste 
and criticism, and fell in with the most decided 
tendency of the age. It produced an indescrib- 
able effect ; twenty-seven editions appearing even 
during the lifetime of Erasmus. It was trans- 
lated into all languages, and greatly contributed 
to confirm the age in its anticlerical dispositions." 
— -History of the Reformation, vol. i. pp. 289, 290. 



NOTE(BB). Page 334. 

This account of Alexander VI. does not rest 
on Protestant authority. Guicciardini was no ob 
scure Lutheran, writing at a distance about remote 
events, but a distinguished Italian, narrating the 
events of his own times, a fast friend of the 
Church, holding employment under three suc- 
cessive Popes. Hear his story : ■ — 

" All Rome rushed to behold his corpse with 
incredible festivity ; nor was there any man who 
could satiate his eyes with gazing on the remains 
of a serpent which, by his immoderate ambition 
and pestiferous perfidy, and every manner of 
frightful cruelty, of monstrous lust, and un- 
heard-of avarice, trafficking indiscriminately with 
things sacred and profane, had poisoned the whole 
world." 

There is a curious letter extant from Peter 
Martyr, a learned Italian, who spent most of his 
days in Spain, and received ecclesiastical prefer- 
ments and dignities from Charles V., written to 



496 LUTHER. 

a friend on hearing the news of Alexander's elec- 
tion to the Papacy. His correspondent is styled, 
K Alexandri jam Pontificis familiaris." He re- 
joices, for his friend's sake, at the news, he says ; 
but stands in doubt about the choice* so far as the 
interests of religion are concerned. " If he can 
leave, his covetousness and ambition, and, for- 
getting his sons, whom he unblushingly thrusts on 
public view, will give himself to the care of the 
Church, it will be well for the Holy See. • . ... 
One whispered in my ear some -base, wicked, 
sacrilegious rumour that this patron of yours 
climbed to his elevated position, not by learning, 
or purity of life, or the -fervour of his piety, but 
with the help of large promises and golden bribes." 
—Petri Marty ris Opus JEpistolarum, Epist. 117. 



STOTE(CC). Page 337. 

The History of the Cardinalate, including the 
origin of its extraordinary power, the mode of 
exercising it, and some details respecting the 
intrigues which have preceded the most remark- 
able elections to the Papal Chair, would make a 
volume as instructive and useful, perhaps, as any 
that could be written for these times. Consider- 
ing what a Pope is, the making of him is infinitely 
the most important event that can occur to Chris- 
tendom in any given period of time. If, in prac- 
tice, it be found that the highest goodness has 
very seldom attained to that most elevated and 
responsible of all earthly positions, — that a really 
devout, humble-minded, unworldly Pope, of self- 



NOTES. 497 

denying habits and saintly life, is found, at distant 
intervals, upon the roll, — while bad men, wretched 
self-seekers and evil-livers, may be counted by the 
score, — the historical argument against the whole 
system is very strong, and to many minds con- 
clusive. But another' line of proof might be 
adopted. Looking at the jurisdiction claimed by 
the Pope, as soon as he is elected, the following 
questions rnay fairly be asked, and perfectly satis- 
factory answers ought to be forthcoming : — 

" Who selected him from' the crowd of common 
men; and whence is their authority derived to do 
an act so unspeakably momentous? 

" Do they fairly represent the Christian world ? 

" Are they manifestly superior to all dictation 
from the temporal power ? 

" Do they seem, generally, from all that is 
known of them at other timefc, to have pre-eminent 
qualifications for a duty so solemn ? " 

1. Of course we know the Cardinals elect the 
Pope; but who are the_ Cardinals? We read 
nothing about them in the Acts of the Apostles. 
The name never meets us in early Ecclesiastical 
History. This is strange. The Church had 
Popes in those days, we are told. Who elected 
them ? Has the practice altered since ? What 
becomes of the appeal to antiquity, if, one day, a 
Pope decreed that, for all time to come, the old 
mode of election should be abandoned, and a new 
one adopted ? Yet so it was. After Popes had 
been nominated by Gothic Kings, and Eastern 
Emperors, — after Charlemagne and Otho had 
received from Popes for the time being the pri- 
vilege of choosing the next Pope, — the current 
practice in the eleventh century was for the 

K K 



498 LUTHER. 

Clergy of Rome to elect, and the people of Rome 
to approve, — the exercise of this privilege, of 
course, being more or less controlled by the civil 
power, according to the political circumstances of 
the times. Just a thousand years after the 
Church was founded (a. d. 1059), Nicholas II. 
was Pope ; and he did not like this mode of elec- 
tion, for a rival Pope had been chosen, Benedict 
X., whom he and Hildebrand together managed 
to expel by force. He procured a decree of the 
Council of Lateran, therefore, giving the principal 
voice in the election to the Cardinal Bishops, who 
were first to debate the matter among themselves, 
then to call in the Cardinal Clergy, and finally to 
require the consent of the Clergy and people, 
"with a certain participation of the Emperor." 
This lasted for a while; but, after a century, 
another improvement was suggested. In the 
year 1179, Alexander III., after being twice 
driven from Rome by rival Popes, and having 
retorted by formally deposing the Emperor, 
Frederic Barbarossa, who favoured them both, 
decreed that the Cardinals henceforth should have 
the exclusive privilege of giving a Lord to Chris- 
tendom, the consent of two-thirds being necessary 
to make the election valid. 

Still the question recurs, What is a Cardinal ? * 
The title is given to the incumbents of the prin- 
cipal parishes of Rome. They were originally 
seven ; but by the addition of Cardinal Priests to 
the Cardinal Bishops, the body of electors was 

* The name comes from cardo, a hinge, we are told. 
The following lines are from an old poem De Curia Ro- 
mand, quoted by Mr. Thompson, in his Facts from Rome, 
a little publication full of interesting matter on the election 



NOTES. 499 

greatly enlarged, and the College now consists of 
seventy, though the number is seldom full, and 
the Pope fills up vacancies at pleasure. 

Gregory X., in the 13th century, was elected 
after the Cardinals had been three years nearly in 
consultation ; so he made some regulations, of 
which the object was to prevent similar delays in 
future. The electors were to live together, till a 
Pope was chosen, in one room or conclave, with- 
out division by walls or curtains. If the election 
were not concluded within three days, then, for 
the next Jive days, they were to have one dish for 
dinner, and one for supper; and if those five days 
went by without an agreement by two-thirds, 
then, for the remainder of the time, nothing was 
to be allowed them but bread, wine and water. 
The strictness of these regulations has been re- 
laxed : curtains were first allowed ; and now each 
Cardinal has his own apartments, and provides 
his own dinner. Accordingly, two or three car- 
riages, with eight or ten servants, bring a dinner 
each day for each elector ; but no Cardinal goes 

and installation of Popes, the ceremonies of Holy Week 
Relics, and Books of Devotion in current use at Rome. 

" Die age, quid faciunt quibus est a cardine nomen, 
Post Papam quibus est immediatus honos ; 

Expediunt causas, magnique negotia mundi ; 
Extinguunt lites ; foedera rupta ligant; 

Isti participes onerum, Papaeque laborum, 
Sustentant humeris grandia facta suis, 

" Nee ratione vacat quod habent a cardine nomen ; 
Deservire solent nomina rebus in his ; — 
Porta suos postes sine cardine claudere nescit, 

N ec bene praeter eos Pastor ovile regit ; 
Cardo tenet portam, nee quid valet ilia remoto 
Cardine ; sic Papa nil valet absque viris." 
k k 2 



500 LUTHER. 

beyond the walls of the building till the choice is 
made. While they are shut up, the populace 
watches the summit of a certain tin chimney. If 
smoke issues from it at eleven o'clock or four in 
each day, they know that the Pope is not elected, 
as the old gentlemen within are engaged in burn- 
ing the schedules used at the previous poll (the 
necessary two-thirds not having been secured for 
any candidate), and are about to reconsider the 
matter with a view to a fresh poll. All this to 
the Roman Catholic mind, doubtless, seems ap- 
propriate, dignified, worthy of so momentous an 
occasion, quite suited to the most solemn of all 
deliberations, in which not Rome only, but half 
the European nations besides, have the deepest 
interest. 

2. The second question may be disposed of 
much more shortly. " Do the Cardinals fairly 
represent the Christian world?" They ought, 
surely. No warrant being produced of an autho- 
ritative character to show that the jurisdiction 
claimed by them is any thing better than 
an usurpation, — their charter of incorporaton 
being a comparatively modern document, — there 
ought to be some security that the Pope belongs, 
not to Italy, but to Christendom. What security 
is there ? Five-sixths of the Cardinals are almost 
always Italians ; nine-tenths of the Popes have been 
Italians. What pretensions has Italy to domi- 
nation like this ? Who will say that her sons are 
the wisest, noblest, freest, holiest of mankind? 
As no commission from heaven is produced, sub- 
jugating Christian nations to Italian priests, some 
moral fitness ought to be shown, — some pre- 



NOTES. 501 

eminent and universally recognised qualification 
for so high a function. 

3. " Is the College manifestly superior to all 
dictation from the temporal power ? " This is a 
main point, considering what a Pope is, in the 
judgment of those who give him their allegiance, 
namely, Christ's Representative among men, — 
the infallible, living interpreter of God's counsels, 
occupying the place once filled by the Apostles 
when they assembled at Jerusalem to settle con- 
troversies in the Church, and to bind and loose 
with the authority of heaven. How stands the 
case? Do the Cardinals, supposing them fairly 
to represent the Church in its spiritual character, 
act independently, despising all earthly influ- 
ences that can be brought to bear upon them? 
Strange to say, the Ambassadors of Austria, France 
and Spain have, each of them, the privilege . of 
objecting to one Cardinal, and the objection, if 
communicated to the Cardinals by the proper 
officer, the Marshal of the Conclave, at the proper 
time, before two-thirds have come to an agree- 
ment, is allowed as a matter of course. So the 
Ruler of Austria for Austrian purposes, the 
Ruler of Spain for Spanish purposes, the Ruler 
of France for French purposes, may exclude the 
three men most fit to rule the Christian world, 
and all the remaining Cardinals may chance to be 
incompetent or unprincipled men. Yet one among 
them is to be set on that lofty throne, and all 
men are to believe henceforth that he is marked 
out by God to wield the superhuman power en- 
trusted to successive Popes. 

K K 3 



502 LUTHEE. 

4. " Do the Cardinals, from all that is known 
of them, seem to have pre-eminent qualifications 
for a duty so solemn ? " 

Surely not, unless History is a tissue of 
fables. Surely not, unless travellers come home 
to tell us nothing but falsehoods of what they 
have seen in the Holy City. We never heard 
that these men were conspicuous for sanctity, 
eminently faithful as pastors of Christ's flock, 
evidently living above this world, and laying 
rank and wealth and social influence, as the wise 
men laid their offerings, at the Redeemer's feet. 
Who will say that men are not morally dis- 
qualified for the duties they perform who, as a 
body, are the opposite of all this ? 

I know very well that it is impossible in a few 
pages to fortify an argument of this sort so as to 
make it unassailable. The Eoman Catholic will 
refuse, of course, to enter into these matters of 
detail, and will say boldly, "Christ gave St. 
Peter authority over the whole Church ; to that 
authority the Bishops of Rome have succeeded ; 
the mode of their election He has not seen fit to 
determine ; that has varied, no doubt, in different 
ages ; but there they are, and either His promise 
has failed, or the virtues belonging to the pos- 
sessor of the Apostolic See must still be living in 
them." Certainly, if Christ did give power like 
the Pope's to St. Peter, — and if there is plain 
proof from Scripture, or early Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, that the jurisdiction thus given was transmit- 
ted, in succeeding ages, through one line of Bishops, 
and that to them all Christians in all lands were 
to be entirely submissive, — then, faith must strug- 



NOTES. 503 

gle with violent improbabilities, and believe that 
Popes elected by Emperors, mobs, and Cardinals, 
in turn, — Popes who bought their throne, and 
Popes who disgraced it, — Popes who had nothing 
spiritual about them but their pretensions, — were 
really the Church's heaven-sent and heaven- 
taught rulers. But if the evidence, at starting, 
is the very weakest for which credit was ever 
asked in any historical enquiry, — if, granting that 
the two texts about the Rock and the Keys could 
give St. Peter a quarter of what the Pope 
claims, and granting that the Apostle both saw 
Rome, and was Bishop of Rome, — the pedigree, 
or connection between his successors and the ori- 
ginal grant, is not proved as any Court would 
insist upon having a disputed title proved to half 
an acre, — then arguments like these are entitled 
to a hearing. These squabbles about the Papacy 
become, then, of mighty consequence. This 
wretchedly imperfect adaptation of the means to 
the end must strike a candid enquirer. The ob- 
livion of all moral considerations, at many of those 
seasons when the Church was summoned to the 
most responsible of all its duties, makes it almost 
impossible, — nay, quite impossible, — that God's 
voice was speaking through oracles like those, or 
that the men thus chosen had lawful rule over 
the consciences of all baptized men in Europe, 
Asia, Africa and America. 



NOTE (DD). Page 373. 

Modern versions of the Roman Catholic Doc- 
trine of Indulgences make it much more harmless. 



504 LUTHER. 

" An Indulgence," says Dr. Wiseman, " is no 
more than a remission by the Church, in virtue 
of the keys, or the judicial authority committed 
to her, of a portion, or the entire, of the temporal 
punishment due to sin. The infinite merits of 
Christ form the fund whence this remission is 
derived ; but besides, the Church holds that, by 
the communion of Saints, penitential works per- 
formed by the just, beyond what their own sins 
might exact, are available to other members of 
Christ's body." 

Tetzel's divinity was of another kind. His In- 
dulgences were a much more marketable com- 
modity. The people who bought them, and went 
away pleased with their bargains, would have 
thought themselves basely cheated, if told that 
they were no safer than before from eternal per- 
dition. They ran in this strain : — " I, by the 
authority of Jesus Christ, of His blessed Apos- 
tles, Peter and Paul, and of the most Holy See, 
granted and committed to me in these parts, do 
absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, in 
whatever manner they have been incurred, and 
then from all thy sins, transgressions, and ex- 
cesses, how enormous soever they may be, even 
from such as are reserved for the cognizance of 
the Apostolical See. And as far as the keys of 
the Church extend, I remit to you all punish- 
ment which you deserve in purgatory on their 
account ; and I restore you to the Holy Sacra- 
ments of the Church, to the unity of the faithful, 
and to that innocence and purity which you pos- 
sessed at baptism ; so that, if you die now, the 
gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates 
of the Paradise of delight shall be opened. And 



NOTES. 505 

" you shall not die at present, this grace shall 
remain in full force when you are on the point of 
death. In the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghor,t." " In spite of the 
ambiguity of one or two expressions," says Dr. 
Waddington most truly, "this is nothing less, when 
fairly interpreted, than an unconditional permis- 
sion to sin for the rest of life ; and as such it was 
assuredly received by those classes of the people 
for which it was chiefly intended, and whose 
morality is peculiarly confided to the superin- 
tendence of the clergy." — History of the Church, 
vol. iii. p. 344. 



NOTE (E E). Page 388. 

Luther and John Bunyan had much in com- 
mon. Both were fearless confessors ; both sprang 
from the people, and wrote for them ; both dis- 
covered for themselves, and then proclaimed with 
untiring zeal and energy to others, the true doc- 
trine of the Cross ; both rejoiced in allegory and 
fable; both suffered, as few of God's servants 
have done, from those peculiar temptations which 
we may suppose to have been styled by St. Paul 
the " fiery darts" of the Wicked One. To thou- 
sands, in the two last centuries, the PilgrirrHs 
Progress has been as precious as ever the Re- 
former's great work was to our gifted country- 
man in his time of need ; and all who revere the 
memories of the teacher and the learner will gladly 
read Bunyan's own account of his earliest meet- 
ing with any of Luther's works. It runs thus : — 



506 LUTHEE. 

" Before I had got thus far out of these my 
temptations, I did greatly long to see some ancient 
godly man's experience, who had writ some hun- 
dreds of years before I was born. Well, after 
many such longings in my mind, the God, in 
whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast 
into my hand one day a book of Maetin Ltj- 
thee ; it was his Comment on the Galatians ; it 
was so old that it was ready to fall piece from 
piece if I did but turn it over. Now I was 
pleased much that such an old book had fallen 
into my hands; the which, when I had but a 
little way perused, I found my condition, in his 
experience, so largely and profoundly handled, as 
if his book had been written out of my heart. 
This made me marvel ; for thus thought I, This 
man could not know anything of the state of 
Christians now, but must needs write and speak 
the experience of former days. Besides, he doth 
most gravely, in that book, debate of the rise of 
these temptations, namely, blasphemy, despera- 
tion, and the like, showing that the law of Moses, 
as well as the Devil, death, and hell, hath a very 
great hand therein, — the which at first was very 
strange to me ; but, considering and watching, I 
found it so indeed. But of particulars here I 
intend nothing: only this methinks I must let 
fall before all men ; I do prefer this book of 
Martin Luther upon the Galatians (excepting the 
Holy Bible) before all the books that ever I have 
seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience." 



NOTES. 507 



NOTE (FF). Page 391. 

The Elector at this period sought counsel from 
Erasmus; and in the course of B December, 1520, 
a very remarkable interview took place between 
the wavering Prince and the cautious theologian, 
which is thus recorded : — 

" The parties conversed standing by the fire- 
side. Frederic first proposed that they should 
communicate in Dutch, the native language of 
Erasmus; but he preferred Latin, which the 
Elector thoroughly understood without professor 
to speak it ; accordingly Spalatin acted as his in- 
terpreter. After the usual preliminary civilities, 
Frederic opened the discourse by expressing his 
horror of heresy, and his wish to be swallowed 
up alive rather than give it any reception or fa- 
vour. c But, if Luther teaches the truth, I will 
never suffer any one to oppress him, whatsoever 
risk there may be, either to myself or to those 
about me, in defending him. I admit that the 
subjects in controversy are placed above my know- 
ledge, and I do not pretend to judge whether 
Luther be right or not. I want information and 
the counsel of the learned. I have therefore in- 
vited you hither that I may learn your sentiment 
on this matter ; and I conjure you to tell me 
them with sincerity.' Erasmus stood for a short 
time musing, with his lips pressed together, and 
delayed to answer ; while the Prince, as he was 
wont when discoursing on a serious subject, fixed 
his eyes steadily and gravely upon his face. At 
length Erasmus broke silence in these words, — - 



508 LUTHEK. 

Luther has committed two sins ; he has touched the 
Pope upon the croivn, and the monks upon the belly. 
Upon which the Elector smiled ; and he always 
remembered that answer, and repeated it a short 
time before his death. Erasmus then subjoined 
with earnestness that Luther had done well in the 
censures which he cast on the abuses of the 
Church, — that these absolutely required correc- 
tion, — that the substance of his doctrine was true, 
but that there was a want of moderation in his 
manner of advancing it." — Waddingtorts History 
of the Reformation^ vol. i. pp. 315, 316. 



NOTE (G G). Page 433. 

This letter is too curious not to be given en- 
tire. We may admire what is fatherly in it, and 
rejoice to think that Luther at Coburg had his 
thoughts divided between the scene of theological 
strife at Augsburg on one side, and his own 
nursery on the other ; but we may doubt, at the 
same time, whether the strain is elevated enough 
for a subject so serious. A very young child can 
apprehend intense enjoyment apart from sport ; 
and therefore the picture of a child's heaven seems 
imperfect in which there is no allusion to the 
happiness connected with the exercise of good- 
ness. Here it is, however, as Luther wrote it ; 
and Catherine, no doubt, or Aunt Magdalene, 
read it to little John; and graver, nobler 
thoughts, we dare say, had a place in the Sunday 
lessons which were given at other times, when 
the father sat in his loved home at Wittemberg. 



NOTES. 509 

" Grace and peace be with thee, my dear little 
boy ! I rejoice to find that you are attentive to 
your lessons and your prayers. Persevere, my 
child, and when I come home I will bring some 
pretty fairing. I know of a beautiful garden, 
full of children in golden dresses, who run about 
under the trees, eating apples, pears, cherries, 
nuts, and plums. They jump and sing, and are 
full of glee, and they have pretty little horses, 
with golden bridles and silver saddles. As I 
went by this garden, I asked the owner of it who 
those children were, and he told me that they 
were the good children, who loved to say their 
prayers, and to learn their lessons, and who fear 
God. Then I said to him, — Dear Sir, I have a 
boy, little John Luther ; may not he, too, come 
to this garden, to eat these beautiful apples and 
pears, to ride these pretty little horses, and to 
play with the other children ? And the man 
said, — If he is very good, if he says his prayers, 
and learns his lessons cheerfully, he may come, 
and he may bring with him little Philip and 
little James. Here they will find fifes and drums, 
and other nice instruments, to play upon, and 
they shall dance and shoot with little cross-bows. 
Then the man showed me in the midst of the 
garden a beautiful meadow to dance in. But all 
this happened in the morning before the children 
had dined ; so I could not stay till the beginning 
of the dance, but I said to the man, I will go 
and write to my dear little John, and teach him 
to be good, to say his prayers, and learn his 
lessons, that he may come to this garden. But 
he has an Aunt Magdalene, whom he loves very 
much ; may he bring her with him ? The man 



510 LUTHEE. 

said, Yes, tell him that they may come together. 
Be good, therefore, dear child, and tell Philip and 
James the same, that you may all come and play 
in this beautiful garden. I commit you to the 
care of God. Give my love to your Aunt Mag- 
dalene, and kiss her for me. From your papa, 
who loves you. 

" Martin Luther." 



NOTE (H H). Page 461. 

So says Ranke, whom we prefer to follow, 
though another statement is made with confidence, 
that the hymn and the tune were both composed 
by Luther on his way to Worms in the year 1521. 
Both were " improvised " at Oppenheim, says one 
story; he stood up, and sang some of it in his 
chariot, as soon as he came within sight of 
Worms, says another; he passed the following 
night at his window, says a third, " sometimes 
meditating with earnestly upcast eyes, sometimes 
breathing the air of his hymn upon his flute."— 
Michelet, Note in pp. 80, 81. One would like to 
believe all this, but does not dare to do so 
against a well-authenticated counter-statement. 
Had it been really so, no other date ever could 
have been assigned ; the tradition among Luther's 
friends and followers would have been too clear 
and uniform; whereas writers of the next age, 
without precise information, might naturally wish 
to connect the Reformer's best-known poem with 
the noblest passage in his life, and so might 



NOTES. 511 

hazard the conjecture which others received as 
fact. According to a well-known rule in his- 
torical inquiries, it will be well for us to distrust 
what we most wish to believe. 

No translation, probably, can fairly represent 
to an English ear what has been sung with en- 
thusiasm by German congregations through ten 
generations; but the following version by Mr. 
Carlyle, I presume, is the best that our language 
supplies. 



" A safe stronghold our God is still, 
A trusty shield and weapon ; 
He'll help us clear from all the ill 

That hath us now oe'rtaken. 
The ancient Prince of Hell 
Hath risen with purpose fell ; 
Strong mail of Craft and Power 
He weareth in this hour, — 
On earth is not his fellow. 

" With force of arms we nothing can ; 

Full soon were we down ridden : 
But for us fights the proper Man, 

Whom God himself hath bidden : 
Ask ye, Who is this same ? 
Christ Jesus is his name, 
The Lord Sabaoth's Son, — 
He, and no other one, 

Shall conquer in the battle. 

" And were this world all Devils o'er 
And watching to devour us, 

"We lay it not to heart so sore, 
Not they can overpower us : 

And let the Prince of 111 

Look grim as e'er he will, 

He harms us not a whit : 

For why ? His doom is writ, 
A word shall quickly slay him. 



512 LUTHER. 

" God's word, for all their craft and force, 

One moment will not linger ; 
But, spite of Hell, shall have its course, 

'Tis written by his finger : 
And though they take our life, 
Goods, honour, children, wife, 
Yet is their profit small ; 
These things shall vanish all, — 

The City of God remaineth." 

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. ii. pp. 261, 262. 



513 



INDEX. 



/Esop, his Fables, printed by 
Caxton, 155. 

Aguado, sent from Spain to inves- 
tigate charges against Colum- 
bus, 258. 

Agincourt, battle of, 3 ; the Duke 
of Orleans taken prisoner there, 
5. 

Alexander VI. elected Pope, 330 ; 
his character, 331, &c. ; his 
death, 334. 

Alfonso, younger son of John IT., 
King of Castile, is proclaimed 
King by the insurgents, 188 ; 
his sudden death, 189. 

Alfonso, king of Portugal, seeks 
Isabella in marriage, 190; is 
betrothed to Joanna, the pre- 
tended daughter of Henry IV., 
192 ; asserts her rights, and 
makes war on Spain, 192 ; gives 
up his bride, and consents to 
terms of peace, 1 94. 

Anacaona, wife of Caonabo, is 
friendly to the Spaniards, 255 ; 
cruelly put to death by Ovan- 
do, 297. 

Anjou, Countess of, high price 
given by her for some Homi- 
lies, 102. 

Aragon, King of, seeks the hand 
of Isabella for his son Ferdi- 
nand, 190. 



Arras., peace of, between France 
and Burgundy, 83. 

Athanasius, his works trans- 
lated by Erasmus, 341 . 

Augsburg, Luther summoned 
thither by the Pope, 386 ; 
Diet held their, 455 ; Confes- 
sion of, 457. 

Azores, discovery of, 182. 

Barante, passage from, quoted by 
Lord Mahon, 90. 

Barcelona, meeting of Columbus 
there with Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, 235. 

Baudricourt, Robert de, Captain 
of Vancouleurs, receives a re- 
port of Joan's visions, 1 5 ; 
treats it with scorn, 15 ; has 
an interview with her, 15; 
communicates with the Court 
respecting her, 18. 

Beaufort, Cardinal, brings rein- 
forcements from England, 49 ; 
presides over the Court which 
pronounces judgment on Joan, 
75 ; is present at her execu- 
tion, 79 ; moved to tears by 
the scene, 79 ; crowns Henry 
VI. of England as King of 
France, 82. 

Bedford, Duke of, brother of 
Henry V., Regent for Henry 



L L 



514 



INDEX. 



VI., 5 ; lays siege to Orleans, 
6 ; offers battle to Charles, 49 ; 
presses for the conviction of 
Joan, 71 ; brings Henry VI. 
to France and crowns him, 82. 

Bobadilla, Francisco, arrives at 
Hispaniola as Commissioner, 
272 ; his insolence and injus- 
tice, 272 ; puts Columbus in 
irons, 273 ; encourages charges 
against him, 274 ; sends him to 
Spain for trial, 275 ; is super- 
seded, 278 ; circumstances of 
his death, 282. 

Bora, Catherine, flees from her 
convent to Wittemburg, 429 ; 
her marriage with Luther, 430 ; 
letters of Luther to her, 482. 

Borgia, Caesar, son of Alexander 
VI., his crimes, 331, 332. 

Boyle, Father, Apostolical Vicar 
of the New World, associated 
with Diego Columbus as head 
of Council at Isabella, 249 ; 
sails for Spain to bring charges 
against Columbus, 250 ; ef- 
fects of his misrepresentations, 
257. 

Braun, John, Vicar of Eisenach, 
his early friendship with Lu- 
ther, 239 ; Luther's letter to 
him, 359. 

Brazil, discovery of, 321, 

Bucer, Martin, his first meeting 
with Luther, 385 ; writes 
against Luther on the Sacra- 
mentarian controversy, 444 ; 
his letter to Zwinglius about 
Luthei*, 445 ; is present at the 
Conference of Marburg, 445; 

Bunyan, like Luther in many re- 
spects, 505 ; his account of his 
first meeting with the Commen- 
tary on the Galatian.% 506. 

Burgundy, Philip, Duke of, un- 
cle of Charles VI., rules the 



King up to the time of his 
death, 2. 

Burgundy, John, Duke of, son of 
Philip, a party to the assassina- 
tion of Louis, Duke of Orleans, 
2 ; himself assassinated by Or- 
leanists, 3. 

Burgundy, Philip, Duke of, sur- 
named The Good, son of John, 
avenges his father's death by 
making alliance with Henry V. 
of England, 4; Joan of Arc's 
letter to him, 44 ; sells Joan to 
the English, 56 ; makes peace 
with Charles VII., 83. 

Cabral, his discovery of Bra- 
zil, 321. 

Cajetan, Cardinal, the Pope's 
Legate, Luther summoned be- 
fore him, 386 ; Luther's ac- 
count of their meeting, 386. 

Cape rie Verd Islands, discovery 
of, 182. 

Cape of Good Hope, passed by 
Bartholomew Diaz, 184. 

Cape Non, long the southern 
boundary of European enter- 
prise, 181. 

Caonabo, a native chief, forms a 
confederacy against the Spa- 
niards, 250 ; his capture and 
death, 254, &c. 

Cardinals, What are they ? 497, 
&c. ; their peculiar privileges, 
when and how granted, 498 ; 
their place of meeting, 499; 
their dinners, scanty once, more 
abundant now, 499 ; their fit- 
ness for the office of making a 
Pope considered, 500, &c. 

Carlstadt encourages the fanati- 
cal party at Wittemberg, 416. 

Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, 
claims Joan upon her capture ; 
his claim allowed, 56 ; presses 



INDEX. 



515 



forward her trial, 72 ; reads 
her sentence of death, 76 ; 
preaches to her at the place of 
execution, 78 ; is moved to 
tears by her demeanour, 79. 
Caxton, William, his birth, edu- 
cation, and apprenticeship, 132 ; 
his residence in Holland, 133 ; 
appointed to negotiate a treaty 
with the Duke of Burgundy, 
1 34 ; in the service of the 
Duchess of Burgundy, 136; 
translates the Trojan history, 
137 ; his wandering life, 138 ; 
how he became a printer, 141, 
142; History of Troy, 141; 
Game of Chess, 144 ; Life of 
Jason, 144; sets up his press 
in Westminster Abbey, 144; 
prints romances, 145; moral 
publications, 147 ; Cordial, or 
Four Last Things, 148 ; Pilgri- 
mage of the Soul, 151 ; His- 
torical publications,! 53; Chro- 
nicles of England, 1 54 ; Image 
or Mirror of the World, 155 ; 
publishes JEsop, 155; and 
Chaucer, 156 ; helped to fix 
the standard of the language, 
1 58 ; his last work, The Art 
and Craft to Know well to 
Die, 164; his death, 165; 
specimen of his spelling, 172 ; 
date of his earliest publica- 
tions according to Dr. Dibdin 
and Mr. Hallam, 174. 
Charles V., of Germany, elected 
Emperor, 324 ; summons Lu- 
ther to the Diet of Worms, 347 ; 
refuses to violate his safe-con- 
duct, 405; issues an edict of 
condemnation, 406 ; at war 
with the Pope, Clement VII., 
447 ; summons a Diet to meet 
at Spires, 453 ; is present at 
Diet of Augsburg, 455 ; hears 

L L 



the Confession of Augsburg, 
457 ; promulgates a decree 
proscribing the Reformed 
Faith, 459; hesitates to en- 
force it, 464 ; urges the Pope 
to summon a General Council, 
464 ; signs the Truce of Ra- 
tisbon, 468 ; heads an army, 
before which Solyman retires, 
468. 

Charles V., of France, his store 
of books, 102. 

Charles VI. smitten with mad- 
ness, 1 ; ruled by relatives, 2 ; 
surrenders his kingdom to 
Henry V. of England, 4 ; his 
death, 5. 

Charles VII., while Dauphin, 
in the hands of the Orleans 
faction, 3 ; succeeds his father, 
5; neglects his kingly duties, 
5 ; has an interview with Joan 
of Arc at Chinon, 21 ; accepts 
her services, 23 ; marches to 
Rheims, 40 ; is crowned, 42 ; 
makes an attempt on Paris, 
49 ; regains possession of Paris, 
83. 

Chaucer, his works printed by 
Caxton, 156; his Canterbury 
Tales, 157; character of them, 
158. 

Chrysostom, his works translated 
into Latin by Erasmus, 341. 

Clarence, Duke of, brother of 
Edward IV., Caxton dedi- 
cates the Game of Chess to him, 
144. 

Coburg, Luther's residence there 
during the Diet of Augsburg, 
459, &c. 

Columbus, his early history 
and education, 201 ; his pas- 
sion for the sea, 201 ; com- 
mences his nautical life, 201 ; 
his wonderful escape, 203 ; ar- 

2 



516 



INDEX. 



rives in Portugal, 203; his 
marriage, 203 ; his theory of 
the earth, 205 ; his correspon- 
dence with Toscanelli, 206 ; 
makes overtures to Portugal, 
207 ; solicits the countenance 
of Henry VII. of England, 
208; his appearance at Palos, 
198 ; unfolds his plans to Mar- 
chena, 199 ; he seeks the Court 
of Spain, 208 ; his person and 
character, 209 ; introduced to 
Ferdinand, 210; conference 
with men of science at Sala- 
manca, 212 ; his theories coldly 
received, 213 ; returns to Palos, 
214 ; is recalled to Court, 214 ; 
is again repulsed, 215; gains 
the hearty support of Isabella, 
215; his terms, 246 ; fits out 
an armament, 217 ; sets sail, 
218; refractory spirit of his 
crew, 221 ; discovers St. Sal- 
vador, 227 ; takes possession 
in the name of the Sovereigns 
of Spain, 227 ; discovers Cuba, 
229; and Hispaniola, 230; 
his description of the newly- 
discovered lands, 231 ; forms a 
settlement in Hispaniola, 232 ; 
sails for Europe, 233; recep- 
tion in Portugal, 234 ; in Spain, 
235 ; by the Sovereigns, 236 ; 
honours paid him, 237 ; he re- 
solves on a second expedition, 
237 ; sets sail, 237 ; reaches 
Hispaniola, 238 ; his disap- 
pointment and difficulties there, 
238 — 242 ; sails on an explor- 
ing voyage, 243 ; discovers Ja- 
maica, 244 ; returns to Hispa- 
niola, and meets his brother 
Bartholomew, 246 ; receives 
information of an intended at- 
tack by the natives, 251 ; gains 
a complete victory, 256 ; charges 



brought against him, 258 ; re- 
turns to Spain to defend him* 
self, 258 ; his triumph over his 
assailants, 259 ; his third voyage, 
261 ; discovers the continent 
of America, 261 ; his theory 
of the earth's form, 262 ; re- 
turns to Hispaniola, 263 ; dis. 
orders in his absence, 264 ; 
obliged to make concessions to 
the disaffected, 267; slanders 
against him in Spain renewed, 
270 ; Bobadilla authorized to 
supersede him, 272 ; his digni- 
fied submission, 273 ; he is put 
in irons, 273 ; his trial, 274 ; 
is sent to Spain, 274 ; arrives 
as a prisoner, 275 ; sends a 
memorial to the Queen, 276 ; 
Isabella grants him an inter- 
view, 277 ; is acquitted of the 
charges brought against him, 
277 ; but not restored to his 
government, 278 ; prepares 
for his fourth voyage, 279 ; 
his adventures off Hispaniola, 
281 ; sails for South America, 
282 ; encounters fearful tem- 
pests, 283 ; lands on the conti- 
nent, 284; his dream, 286; 
reaches Jamaica, 287 -, his long 
detention there, 287 ; his let- 
ter to the Sovereigns, 288 ; 
returns to Hispaniola, 294 ; 
lamentable occurrences during 
his absence, 295, &c. ; returns 
to Spain to plead the cause of 
the natives, 299 ; his poverty 
and sickness, 300 ; his last visit 
to Court, 301 ; is coldly re- 
ceived by Ferdinand, 301 ; 
pleads in vain for restoration of 
his honours, 302; his death, 
303 ; removal of his remains to 
Hispaniola and Cuba, 303 ; 
righted by posterity, 304 ; his 



INDEX. 



517 



letter to his Sovereigns, 309 ; 
his letter to the Royal Trea- 
surer, 311; his speculations re- 
specting the earth, 315. 

Columbus, Bartholomew, sent by 
his brother to England, SOS ; 
joins him at Hispaniola, 246 ; 
his valuable qualities, 247; is 
appointed Lieutenant Gover- 
nor, 247 ; imprisoned by Boba- 
dilla, 273 ; his prudence and 
vigour at Jamaica, 291. 

Columbus, Diego, brother of 
Christopher, placed at the head 
of a Council at Isabella, 249 ; 
mutiny against him, 250 ; re- 
fuses to give up insurgents to 
Bobadilla, 272 ; made prisoner 
with his brother, 273. 

Columbus, Diego, son of Chris- 
topher, is present at his father's 
death, 303. 

Columbus, Fernando, his life of 
his father, 306. 

Compiegne is attacked by the 
Duke of Burgundy, 53 ; Joan 
comes to its rescue, 53; in a 
sortie from it Joan is taken 
prisoner, 54. 

Cortes conquers Mexico for Spain, 
322. 

Cotta, Ursula, her motherly kind- 
ness to Luther, 344. 

Cuba discovered, 229. 

D'Aubigne, quotation from, 339 ; 
character of his History of the 
Reformation, 489. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, passes the 
Cape of Good Hope, 1 84. 

Dibdin, Dr., his opinion as to 
the date of Caxton's first work, 
174. 

Domremy, village of, birthplace 
of Joan of Arc, 7 ; taken pos- 
session of by the Burgundians, 

L L 



10 ; excused from taxation for 
sake of Joan, 52. 
Dunois, in command of the 
garrison at Orleans, 24 ; his 
meeting with Joan of Arc, 27 ; 
. seconds Joan in her last sortie, 
33 ; conversation with Joan, 
47. 

Eck, Doctor, Luther's disputation 
with him on the Pope's Supre- 
macy, 387; brings a Bull of 
Excommunication against Lu- 
ther from Rome, 395 ; appears 
against the Reformers at Augs- 
burg, 457. 

Edward IV., King of England, 
seeks the hand of Isabella for 
his brother, 190. 

Eisenach, Luther at school there, 
343. 

Eisleben, birthplace of Luther, 
342. 

Emmanuel, King of Portugal, 
succeeds his cousin John, 186 ; 
encourages maritime discovery, 
186. 

Erasmus, his exposure of ec- 
clesiastical corruptions, 327 ; 
his scholarship and theological 
publications, 340, 341 ; his cha- 
racter, 437, 438 ; is solicited 
by Kings and Popes to write 
against Luther, 438 ; Luther's 
letter to him, 438 ; his Free- 
dom of the Will, 439 ; his con- 
versation with the Elector 
Frederic, 507. 

Erfurth, University of, Luther 
removes to it, 345 ; his life 
there, 345 ; finds a Bible there, 
346 ; leaves it for Augustinian 
Convent, 349. 

Ferdinand, son of the King of 
Aragon, a suitor for the hand 
3 



518 



INDEX. 



of Isabella, 1 90 ; travels in dis- 
guise to meet her at Valladolid, 
191 ; their marriage, 191 ; his 
character, 191; Columbus in- 
troduced to him, 211 ; assem- 
bles a conclave at Salamanca, 
21 1 ; his injustice towards Co- 
lumbus, 301. 

Fernandez, Garcia, a physician 
of Palos, one of the early 
friends of Columbus, present 
when Columbus first unfolds 
his plans atPalos, 199 ; accom- 
panies him on his first voyage, 
217. 

Fonseca, Bishop, President of 
the Council for the Indies, his 
treachery to Columbus, 268 ; 
exerts his influence to injure 
Columbus, 271. 

Frederic, Elector of Saxony, his 
character, 389; his refusal of 
the empire, 389 ; his counte- 
nance of Luther, 390 ; his cau- 
tion, 391 ; his interview with 
Erasmus, 504 ; conveys Luther 
to the Wartburg for safety, 
407, 408; Luther's letter to 
him on leaving his hiding-place, 
418 ; sends Luther a coat, 
436. 

Fust, John, in partnership with 
Guttenberg, 108 ; quarrel and 
separation between them, 114; 
carried on business with Schcef- 
fer, 125; his death, 126. 

Gama, Vasco de, sails to India 
by Cape of Good Hope, 186. 

Geinsfleische, supposed by some 
to have been the brother of 
Guttenberg, and to have taught 
him the rudiments of printing, 
having stolen them from Hol- 
land, 171. 

Gibbon, his mention of Caxton 



as the first English printer, 
127. 

Guacanagari, one of the five na- 
tive chiefs of Hispaniola, his 
meeting with Columbus, 230 ; 
refuses to join confederacy 
against the Spaniards, 25 1 ; in- 
forms Columbus of intended 
attack, 251 ; informs him of a 
second intended attack at Isa- 
bella, 256. 

Guicciardini, his testimony con- 
cerning Haerlem, 121 ; his 
character of Alexander VI., 495. 

Guienne recovered by the French, 
84. 

Guizot, his glowing eulogy on 
Joan, 81. 

Guttenberg honoured with a sta- 
tue, and public commemora- 
tion, as inventor of printing, 
107; so described by Trithe- 
mius, 108 ; joins partnership 
with Fust, 108 ; prints with 
him and SchoefFer at the Zum 
Jungen in Mayence, 109 ; his 
early history at Strasburg, 112; 
dispute with Fust, 114; sub- 
sequent history uncertain, 115. 

Haerlam claims to be the birth- 
place of Printing, 117. 

Hallam, Mr., his opinion as to 
the date of Caxton's first work, 
174. 

Hare, Archdeacon, his learned 
and successful vindication of 
Luther, 491 n. 

Havanna, the city of, the burial- 
place of Columbus, 303. 

Henry, Prince of Portugal, 
younger son of John I., his 
energy in promoting maritime 
discovery, 180 ; his success, 
181,182; his death, 182. 

Henry IV., King of Castile, son 
of John II., succeeds to the 



INDEX. 



519 



throne on the death of his 
father, 188; his feeble charac- 
ter, 188; a party formed against 
him, 188 ; is formally deposed, 
188 ; his younger brother pro- 
claimed king, 189 ; his death, 
192. 

Henry V., King of England, 
claims the throne of France, 2 ; 
conqueror at Agincourt, 2 ; 
party to treaty of Troyes, 4 ; en- 
ters Paris as regent, 5 ; dies, 6. 

Henry VI., King of England, 
succeeds to the English crown 
while still an infant, 5; brought 
over to Paris by Bedford, 82 ; 
crowned there, 82 ; coldly re- 
ceived by its inhabitants, 82. 

Henry VII., King of England, 
overtures made to by Colum- 
bus, soliciting the encourage- 
ment of his enterprise, 208 ; 
the proposal not at first con- 
sidered, 247 ; the King after- 
wards offers supplies, but too 
late, 248 ; he loses the services 
of Columbus, 248. 

Herrera, his character of Co- 
lumbus, 209. 

Hispaniola, discovered, 230 ; ori- 
gin of its name, 230 ; Colum- 
bus's description of, 231 ; a 
settlement formed there, 232 ; 
Columbus sails from it to Spain, 
233 ; returns to it, 238; troubles 
in his absence, 239. 

Innoeent VIII. , Pope, his bare- 
faced profligacy, 330. 

Irving, Washington, quotation 
from, 225. 

Isabella, Queen of Spain, daugh- 
ter of John II., refuses the 
crown, 189 ; her marriage, 1 91 ; 
becomes Queen by the death of 
her brother Henry, 192; her 
noble qualities, 193 ; refuses to 



dismember her kingdom, 193 ; 
becomes the unquestioned pos- 
sessor of the throne, 194; her 
personal influence, 195; gives 
her sanction and support to 
Columbus's first voyage, 215; 
her honourable reception of him 
on his return, 236 ; her indig- 
nation at wrongs of natives, 271 ; 
supposes Columbus to be re- 
sponsible for them, 271 ; her 
generous reception of him after- 
wards, 277 ; her death, 300. 

Jamaica, discovery of, 244. 

Jean de Metz meets Joan at 
Vancouleurs, 1 6 ; promises to 
conduct her to the King, 16 ; 
escorts her to Chinon, 18. 

Joan of Arc, born at Domremy, 
7 ; her early years, 8, 86 ; her 
piety, 9; her Voices, 10 ; her 
superstitions, 11 ; her doubts 
and perplexities, 13, 14; her 
patriotism, 14 ; she consults 
her uncle, 15; visit to Van- 
couleurs, 15; reply to the Duke 
of Lorraine, 17 ; her simplicity, 
17 ; her journey to Chinon, 19, 
20; her interview with the 
King, 21 ; is sent to Poitiers for 
examination, and approved, 22, 
23 ; displays her standard, 24 ; 
checks licence and disorder in 
the camp, 25 ; goes to meet the 
army mustering at Blois, 25 ; 
her letter to the English Gene- 
rals, 25 ; enters Orleans, 28 ; 
her first fight and gallant be- 
haviour, 30 ; second sortie, 32 ; 
third sortie in spite of generals, 
34 ; is wounded, 35 ; her hu- 
mility and piety, 36 ; siege 
raised, and half of Joan's mis- 
sion accomplished, 37 ; presses 
for the other half, 38; pre- 

4 



520 



INDEX. 



diction of victory at Patay, 39 ; 
Joan at Rheiras, 43, 44 ; sends 
a letter to the Duke of Bur- 
gundy proposing peace, 44; 
her gentle and blameless de- 
meanour in the camp, 46 ; her 
yearnings for home, 47 ; yields 
to the King's entreaties to re- 
main with the army, 48 ; her 
retreat from Paris, 51 ; is 
ennobled by the King, 51; pro- 
cures immunity from taxation 
for her native village, 52; her 
kindness to the poor, 53 ; is 
taken prisoner at Compiegne, 
54 ; is sold to the English, 56 ; 
is confined in the Castle of 
Beaurevoir, 57 ; attempts to 
escape, but is recaptured, 57 ; 
her trial at Rouen, 58 ; charges 
against her, 58 ; asserts her 
mission, 6 1 ; is encouraged by 
her Voices in prison, 64 ; her 
patience under repeated exami- 
nations, 65 ; promptness and 
cleverness of her answers, 66 
— 69 ; is pressed to condemn 
herself, 69 ; refuses, 70 ; is 
threatened with the rack, 72; 
judgment is given against her, 
73 ; sentence of death pro- 
nounced, 76 ; her submission 
and recantation, 76 ; is par- 
doned on conditions, 76; re- 
cals her recantation, 77 ; is led 
to execution, 78 ; her death, 80; 
testimony of eye-witnesses, 80; 
Guizot's character of her, 81. 
Joanna, daughter of the wife of 
Henry IV. of Spain, is be- 
trothed to the King of Por- 
tugal, 192; her claim to the 
throne of Spain supported by 
him, 198 ; she resigns her pre- 
tensions, and retires into a con- 
vent, 194. 



John II., King of Portugal, his 
anxiety to reach India by the 
African coast, 183; his trea- 
cherous conduct towards Co- 
lumbus, 207 ; entertains Co- 
lumbus honourably after his 
first voyage, 234. 

John, Elector of Saxony, his cha- 
racter, 450 ; attends the Diet 
of Spires, 454 ; signs the Pro- 
test, 454 ; attends the Diet of 
Augsburg, 456; succeeds in 
having the Confession read 
publicly before the emperor, 
457.. 

Jonas, Justus, his steady friend- 
ship for Luther, 456 ; attends 
him to the Diet of Augsburg, 
456; with him at his death, 
484. 

Julius II., his election to the 
Papacy, 335 ; his unscrupulous 
policy, 335 ; his delight in war, 
336. 

Junius, Hadrian, author of a His- 
tory of Holland, supports the 
claim of Haerlem to be the 
birthplace of printing, 118. 

Koster, Lawrence, the claim 
set up for him as the inventor 
of printing, 1 18, &c. 

Large, Robert, a citizen of Lon- 
don, Caxton apprenticed to 
him, 132 ; his legacy to Caxton, 
133. 

Leipsic, Luther's disputation 
there, 387. 

Leo X. made a Cardinal at thir- 
teen, 330 ; elected Pope, 338 ; 
his character, 338 ; cites Luther 
to Rome, afterwards to Augs- 
burg, 386 ; Luther's letter to 
him, 393 ; issues a Bull of Ex- 
communication against Luther, 
395. 



INDEX. 



521 



Lorraine, Duke of, applies to Joan 
for a cure, 17. 

Louis XL, King of France, seeks 
the hand of Isabella for his 
brother, 190. 

Loyola, Ignatius, procures a Bull 
from Paul III. founding the 
Order of Jesuits, 481. 

Luther, John, father of Martin 
Luther, 342, 358. 

Luther, Martin, his birth and pa- 
rentage, 342 ; his school-days, 
343 ; goes to the University of 
Erfurth, 345 ; meets with a 
Latin Bible, 346 ; takes his 
Bachelor's degree, 347 ; his 
terrors of conscience, 347 ; re- 
solves [to be a Monk, 349 ; 
takes leave of his College 
friends, 349 ; admitted into an 
Augustinian Convent, 350 ; 
his Convent life, 350 ; cheer- 
fully endures hardships, 351 ; 
bis self-discipline, 351 ; his 
diligent studies, 352 ; his con- 
flicts and anxieties, 354 ; his 
meeting with Staupitz, 355 ; 
happy results of his intercourse 
with him, 356, 357 ; ordained 
Priest, 358 ; appointed Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy at Wittem- 
berg, 360 ; his busy life there, 
361 ; becomes a Preacher, 361; 
effect of his Preaching, 362 ; 
his journey to Rome, 362 ; is 
shocked by the prevailing im- 
piety, 364 ; returns to Wittem- 
berg, 366 ; made Doctor of 
Divinity, 366 ; his life at Wit- 
temberg, 370 ; denounces In- 
dulgences, 375 ; promulgates 
his 95 Propositions, 376 ; feel- 
ings with which he entered on 
his struggle with the Papacy, 
380; his defence of the 95 
Propositions against assailants, 



382, 383 ; holds a public dis- 
putation at Heidelberg, 385 ; 
cited before the Pope's Legate 
at Augsburg, 386 ; discussions 
at Leipsic, 387 ; his Letters to 
the Pope, 388 ; publishes his 
Commentary on the Epistle to 
the Galatians, 388 ; large circu- 
lation of his writings, 389 ; is 
countenanced by the Elector of 
Saxony, 390 ; publishes his ap- 
peal on the Reformation of Re- 
ligion, 394 ; and the Babylonish 
Captivity, 394 ; burns the 
Pope's Bull, 395 ; summoned 
to the Diet of Worms, 397 ; 
his journey, 398 ; appears be- 
fore the Emperor, 399 ; his 
noble demeanour, his defence, 
401 ; his departure, 406 ; ^his 
condemnation, 406 ; his jour- 
ney, 407 ; he is intercepted and 
carried to the Wartburg, 407 ; 
his occupations there, 410 ; 
anxious enquiries after him, 
41 2 ; sends a letter of remon- 
strance to Wittemberg, 416 ; 
returns to Wittemberg, 418 ; 
his Sermons on Peace, 419; 
publishes his translation of the 
New Testament, 421 ; remains 
unmolested at Wittemberg, 
422, 423 ; his remonstrances 
with the peasants and nobles, 
426 ; his grief and passion, 428; 
his marriage, 429 ; his do- 
mestic character, 432 ; his po- 
verty and disinterestedness, 
434 ; his controversy with 
Henry VIII., 437 ; with Eras- 
mus, 437 ; with Zwinglius and 
the Sacramentarians, 441-8 ; 
his moderation in regard to 
religious worship and cere- 
monies, 448 ; his Catechisms, 
Homilies, and Commentaries, 



522 



INDEX. 



449 ; his wise dealing with en- 
dowments, 45 1 ; his letters from 
Coburg, 459 ; his fervency in 
prayer, 460; his Hymns, 461 ; 
his writings for the people, 
462 ; Luther and the Ana- 
baptists, 471 ; his doctrine on 
Satanic influence, 473 ; his de- 
clining years, 476 ; exhausting 
effect of his labours, 476 ; his 
journey to Eisleben, 481 ; his 
last letters, 482; his last ill- 
ness, 483 ; his last prayer, 
484; his death, 484; his fu- 
neral, 485 ; his work, and its 
results, 486, &c. ; Luther and 
Bunyan alike in many things, 
505; letter to Little John, 509; 
Paraphrase of 46th Psalm, 511. 

Madeira, discovery of, 182. 

Magdeburg, Luther at school 
there, 343. 

Mansfeld, town of, John Luther 
removes thither, 342. 

Marchena, Juan Perez de, his 
meeting with Columbus, 198 ; 
becomes a convert to his theory, 
199 ; sends him on to Court of 
Spain, 201 ; prevents him from 
applying to other Courts, 214 ; 
sends a letter of remonstrance 
to Isabella, 214; interview 
with the Queen, 214. 

Marco Polo, a Venetian, won- 
ders described by, 206. 

Margarita, appointed military 
commander at Isabella, 249 ; 
his oppressive conduct, 249 ; 
claims to be independent of the 
Council, 249 ; sails for Spain 
to bring charges against Co- 
lumbus, 250. 

Maritime discovery, the 15th 
century the age of, 179 ; pro- 
gress of, 179, &c, 321, 322. 



Margaret, sister of Francis of 
France, an early convert to the 
reformed faith, 480. 

Mayence, its claim to be the 
birthplace of printing, 107. 

Melancthon, Philip, recom- 
mended by Reuchlin to Greek 
Professorship at Wittemberg, 
391 ; Luther's early admiration 
of him, 391 ; their characters 
contrasted, 392 ; their warm and 
steady friendship, 393 ; accom- 
panies Luther to Conference 
with the Sacramentarians at 
Marburg, 445 ; accompanies 
the Elector John to Diet of 
Spires, 454 ; draws up the Con- 
fession of Augsburg, 457 ; at- 
tempts a compromise with the 
Romish party, 458 ; Luther's 
letter to him on that subject, 
460 ; pronounces a funeral ora- 
tion over Luther's remains, 485. 

Mendez, Diego, his enterprising 
voyage from Jamaica to His- 
paniola, 288. 

Mendoza, Cardinal, introduces 
Columbus to Ferdinand, 211. 

Mentel, set up as a rival to Gut- 
tenberg as having been the in- 
ventor of printing, 116. 

Michelet, extract from his His- 
tory of France, 39 — 43 ; his 
hatred of England, 93 — 
98 ; character of his Life of 
Luther, 490. 

Munster, occupied by Anabap- 
tists, 470 ; strange scenes there, 
470 ; recaptured, 471. 



New Testament, Luther's trans- 
lation of, 421 ; excellence of 
its style, 421 ; its rapid dif- 
fusion, 422. 

Non, Cape, long the Southern 



INDEX. 



523 



boundary of European enter- 
prise, 181. 

Normandy, recovered from the 
English, 84. 

Nuremberg, Diet assembled at, 
423. 

CEcolampadius, in concert with 
Bucer and Zwinglius, enters 
into controversy with Luther 
on the Eucharist, 444; his 
work on the subject, 444 ; 
present at the discussion with 
Luther and Melancthon at Mar- 
burg, 445. 

Ojeda, Alonzo de, left by Co- 
lumbus in command of garrison 
at Fort St. Thomas, 249; is 
besieged there, 251 ; undertakes 
to bring Caonabo to the Spanish 
quarters, 252 ; stratagem by 
which he succeeds, 254 ; be- 
comes disaffected, 268 ; leaves 
the island, 269. 

Orleans, besieged by the Duke 
of Bedford, 6 ; army mustered 
for its relief at Blois, 25 ; siege 
raised, 37. 

Orleans, Charles, Duke of, one of 
the prisoners of Agincourt, 5 ; 
detained for twenty-five years, 
84; released, 84. 

Orleans, Louis, Duke of, brother 
of Charles VI., assassinated, 2; 
ancestor of the kings of France 
from Louis XII. to Henry 
III. Note, 493. 

Ovando, appointed to super- 
sede Bobadilla as Governor of 
Hispaniola, 278 ; delays to re- 
lieve Columbus when detained 
in Jamaica, 294 ; his cruelty 
to the natives, 297. 

Palos, a town on the west coast 
of Spain, Columbus stops at 



a convent there, 1 98 ; sails from 
it on his first voyage, 218; 
and lands there on his return, 
235 ; sails from it on his second 
voyage, 237. 

Papacy, decline of its influence 
before the time of Luther, 326. 

Paris in possession of the Eng- 
lish, 49 ; Joan's retreat from, 
51 ; recovery by Richemont, 83. 

Paul III., Pope, incorporates 
the order of Jesuits, 481 ; con- 
venes the Council of Trent, 481. 

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, at- 
tends the Diet of Worms, 404 ; 
brings about a meeting between 
Luther and Melancthon and 
the Sacramentarian Divines, 
445 ; signs protest at Spires, 
454. 

Pinzon, Martin, a navigator of 
Palos, his meeting with Co- 
lumbus, 199; accompanies him 
on his first voyage, 217 ; has 
command of one of the ships, 
217; he parts company from 
the other vessels, 232 ; his 
fidelity questionable, 233. 

Pius II., his election to the 
Papacy, and death, 335. 

Pizarro, his conquest of Peru, 322. 

Poitiers, University of, examina- 
tion of Joan before it, 22. 

Popes, great preponderance of 
bad ones, 497 ; elected succes- 
sively by emperors, Roman 
clergy, and cardinals, 497, &c. ; 
their spiritual pretensions, com- 
pared with the origin of their 
power, futile and extravagant, 
503. 

Porras heads an insurrection in 
Jamaica, 291. 

Porto Santo, discovery of, 181. 

Prescott, his eulogium on Queen 
Isabella, 308. 



524 



INDEX, 



Prester John, fabulous stories 
respecting him, 1 85. 

Prince of Wales, son of Edward 
IV., Caxton dedicates the Life 
of Jason to him, 1 44. 

Printing, origin of obscure, 104 ; 
questions as to its birthplace, 
106, &c. ; rival claims dis- 
cussed, 107, &c. 

Protestant, origin of the term, 
454. 

Rabida, La, a Franciscan con- 
vent, where Columbus left his 
son, 213. 

Ranke, quotations from, 365 ; 
his History of the Reforma- 
tion referred to, 421 ; extracts 
from, 463 ; quotations from 
his History of the Reformation, 
326, 365, 463 ; character of 
the work, 490. 

Ratisbon, truce of, 467. 

Reuchlin, his proficiency in 
Greek and Hebrew learning, 
379 ; sends Melancthon to fill 
the post of Greek professor at 
Wittemberg, 391. 

Rheims, march to, 39 ; entry of 
Charles into the city, and his 
coronation there, 42. 

Rivers, Lord, friendship be- 
tween him and Caxton, 148 ; 
his translation of the Sayings 
of Philosophers. 

Roldan, his obligations to Co- 
lumbus, 264 ; his ingratitude 
and disaffection, 265 ; is out- 
lawed by Bartholomew, 265 ; 
Columbus makes terms with 
him, 267. 

Rome, Luther's visit to it, 362 ; 
his surprise at the abominations 
he saw there, 363 ; taken and 
sacked by Imperial forces, 447. 

Rouen, place of Joan of Arc's 



trial, 58 ; and execution, 79 ; 
the testimony of its citizens to 
Joan's character, 80. 

Salamanca, University of, ex- 
amines theory of Columbus, 
211 ; rejects it, 212. 

Saxony, Duke George of, lays 
the violence of the fanatics to 
the account of Luther, 41 8 ; 
presses the Elector Frederic to 
take violent measures against 
the Reformed Doctrine, 447 ; 
his death, 475. 

Schiller, his Maid of Orleans, 
89. 

Schoeffer, Peter, servant and son- 
in-law to Fust, discovers an 
improved mode of casting the 
types, 109 ; carries on busi- 
ness in partnership with Fust 
and Guttenberg, 109 ; after- 
wards with Fust alone, 125; 
his death, 126. 

Shakspeare, his misconception 
of Joan's character in the First 
Part of Henry VI., 89. 

Sixtus IV., Pope, his claim to 
dispose of all ecclesiastical be- 
nefices, 307. 

Smalcald, League of, 466. 

Socrates, sayings of, touching 
the character of women, 149 ; 
questioned by Caxton, 150. 

Solyman at war with Charles V. , 
besieges Vienna, 447 ; obliged 
to raise the siege, 448 ; invades 
Germany again, 468 ; his en- 
quiries about Luther, 468 ; re- 
tires before Imperial army, 468. 

Southey, his Battle of Blenheim, 
85 note ; his Joan of Arc, 88 ; 
his false description of Joan, 88. 

Spires, Diet of, 453. 

Staupitz, Vicar- General of the 
Augustines, his character, 355; 



INDEX. 



525 



visits the convent at Erfurth, 
and becomes acquainted with 
Luther, 355 ; becomes Lu- 
ther's teacher and comforter, 
356 ; recommends him to the 
Elector of Saxony as Professor 
of Philosophy at Wittemberg, 
360 ; induces him to become a 
preacher, 361 ; and Doctor of 
Divinity, 366. 

Stephen, Sir James, his admirable 
sketch of Luther's life and cha- 
racter, 491. 

Strasburg, claim of, to be the 
birthplace of printing, 115; 
Guttenberg resident there, 112; 
seems to have made experi- 
ments there in the printing 
art, 113. 

St. Salvador, one of the Bahamas, 
Columbus's landing there, 227. 

Tetzel, is commissioned to sell 
indulgences, 373 ; specimen of 
his preaching, 374; indignant 
at Luther's opposition, 376. 

Toledo, Archbishop of, takes an 
active part in the insurrection 
against Henry IV. of Spain, 
188; his ingratitude to . Isa- 
bella, 193. 

Toscanelli, a learned Florentine, 
his correspondence with Co- 
lumbus, 206 ; encourages him 
to persevere, 206. 

Trent, Council of, convened, 481. 

Troyes, treaty of, between Henry 
V. of England, Charles VI. of 
France, and the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 4 ; taken by Charles 
VII., 41. 

Tytler, his absurd account of 
Joan, 89. 



Villena, Marquis of, heads an in- 
surrection against Henry IV., 
King of Spain, 188. 

Waddington, reference to his 
History of the Church, 421 ; 
character of the work, 489. 

Wartburg, Luther carried thi- 
ther for safety, 408; leaves it, 
418. 

Westminster Abbey, Caxton sets 
up his printing press there, 
127. 

Wiclif, his translation of the 
Bible forbidden by Archbishop 
Arundel, 163; price of his 
New Testament, 102. 

Wiseman, Dr., his account of 
Doctrine of Indulgences not at 
all like Tetzel's, 503. 

Wish art, his martyrdom in 
Scotland, 480. 

Worms, Diet of the empire held 
there, 397 ; Luther's journey 
to, 397 ; his arrival there, 399. 

Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's 
assistant and successor at the 
Westminster Press, 165. 

Zell, Ulric, introduced the art of 
printing into Cologne, 122 ; 
his account of its origin and 
progress, 122. 

Zum Jungen, a house in May- 
ence so called, and used as a 
printing-office by Fust, 115. 

Zwinglius, begins to preach 
the Reformed faith in 1516, 
441 ; simplicity of his doctrine 
of the Eucharist, 442 ; his con- 
troversy with Luther on the 
subject, 444 ; their meeting at 
Marburg, 445. 



THE END. 



London : 

Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 

New-street- Square. 



ERRATA. 

Page 189. line 3 from bottom, for "immunity " read "impunity." 
234. line 3 from bottom, for "at " read " on." 



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